Green Options » Carol Gulyas

Greenpeace Staging Rolling Sunlight Tour to Showcase Solar Energy

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:13:23 +0000

Greenpeace USA rolled through my town, Bloomington, Indiana this weekend as part of its national tour to showcase solar energy. Rolling Sunlight will visit 50 communities across the nation talking to people and filming their own comments on how global warming is affecting their lives or will affect their children’s lives.

Their schedule for the next few weeks follows; the tour will proceed through October 16th where it will end in Washington, DC.

9/2 Columbus, OH
9/5 Phoenixville, PA
9/7 Philadelphia, PA
9/10 Elmira, NY
9/12 Oneonta, NY

The presence at these events consists of a 26-ft. biodiesel-fueled truck, a video camera, and an “action tent”, plus 256 square feet of solar panelsupplying enough energy to power three homes. At the action tent visitors can learn more about global warming by viewing videos and write a postcard to their local representatives to pressure them to act on climate change legislation.

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Solar Thin Film Technology Attracts Big Players in Japan

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:26:34 +0000

Thin film solar technology has attracted interest from venture capitalists because of its higher efficiency, lower use of limited silicon, and more easily automated production processes. Now, established Japanese players in the solar arena are getting in the thin film game, followed by companies in China and India, as reported in Renewable Energy World.

Mitsubishi Chemical already produces materials for the solar industry but sees opportunity to produce the cells themselves
Sanyo is an established producer of crystalline solar cells, but has opened an Advanced PV Development Center in Gifu, Japan to concentrate on developing thin film technology.

This is good news for solar energy advocates, as these companies have the capital and the knowledge base to ramp up production more rapidly than startups, while increasing efficiency and cost savings. According to Sanyo’s Makoto Tanaka:

“‘Our target date for volume production was 2012, but in order to move that up, we’ve decided to invest an additional US $14 million,’ said Tanaka, bringing total investment … to some US $70M through 2010. He noted that the production ramp should be eased because part of the new process is very similar to that already used in Sanyo’s mainstay heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer (HIT) cells, which sandwich a single-crystal silicon substrate between layers of amorphous silicon thin films.”

Sadly, the United States is not one of the countries competing on this scale with Sanyo and Mitsubishi, who see their main competition coming from China and India. Though the U.S. company Nanosolar has been a leading innovator in thin film, and Open Energy is making big inroads in the production of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) modules using thin film tech, they are still comparatively small players in the space, along with FirstSolar. Let’s hope that the U.S. steps up to provide the kind of legislative support that U.S. companies need to move forward at a faster pace in developing new solar technologies.

Image Credit: Ovonic.com

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SolCool Solar Air Conditioner Production to Ramp Up in China

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:28:52 +0000

Solar air conditioning has so far been the holy grail of the solar energy world, but now SolCool seems ready to make the dream a reality. With air conditioning being the heaviest user of electricity in many parts of the world, the 600-watt maximum average usage level of SolCool units will significantly alleviate strains on the electric grid. And, SolCool units can run on wind, solar, generator, electric grid, or any combination of these.

SolCool has sought to create demand for its products by installing its direct current heat pump systems in critical care facilities, communication equipment rooms, schools and restaurants. Now it will begin larger-scale production of the units in Guangzhou, China, to serve anticipated growing demand worldwide.

“Clifford Sutton, Vice President of Sales and Marketing stated, ‘Over the next 45 days we will be shipping SolCool.net systems to various regional dealers in North America, the Pacific, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, West Africa, Australia and Asia.’ Mr. Sutton added, ‘Our production capacity can expand to approximately 3,000 units a month by the end of 2008 with three and five ton systems available in May 2009.’” Renewable Energy World, 8/13/08

Advanced Data Centers Has Built First LEED Platinum Data Center

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 12:12:05 +0000

Data centers, the nerve centers for the computing world, use an estimated 2% of all energy used in the United States, and are also heavy users of water. At an AeA presentation I attended in May of this year, Microsoft’s Lewis Curtis shared the following:

In 2006, U.S. data centers consumed 61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to power 5.8 million U.S. households, costing companies $4.5 billion
If this trend is unchecked, in 2011 data centers will use 100 billion kWh of energy at a cost of $7.4 billion, necessitating the building of 10 additional power plants

Attention has turned recently to how these centers can be made much more resource-efficient. Taking a leadership position in this effort is Advanced Data Centers (ADC) , who has just earned a LEED platinum certification for its data center in McClellan Park in Sacramento, California. ZDNet interviewed ADC’s Bob Seese on how the center achieved its LEED rating, summarized here:

The center’s site has some of the lowest power costs in California
ADC invested in its own electricity substation
Rain water will be recaptured from roof runoff and used for landscaping, tower cooling, and some bathroom fixtures
Outside air will be used for cooling 75 percent of the time — free
95 percent of construction debris will be recycled
Non-toxic chemicals were used for finishes and adhesives
Daylighting will be used for ambient lighting throughout the building.

Interstate Electricity Transmission Superhighway Essential to Growth of Low-Carbon Technologies

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 12:46:05 +0000

Big money is backing wind power, and the number of investors ready to step up to the plate continues to grow. But according to an article in Renewable Energy World, that growth is hampered by a lack of a nationwide “electronic transmission superhighway”.

In the sixties America created the interstate superhighways that now crisscross our nation. Now, our country’s energy security depends on a new interstate initiative. Will the U.S. government step up to the plate?

“Across the country, hundreds of wind projects comprising tens of thousands of wind turbines are on hold because no one wants to step forward and pay for upgrades that will primarily benefit others. The obvious solution to this problem is a policy framework that will allow firms interested in building new transmission to collect the costs of the infrastructure investment from those who will benefit from it.”

Richard Sergel, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and Kevin Kolevar, DOE’s assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability, have pointed out in recent testimony before Congress that all low-carbon technologies, from large-scale wind projects to concentrated solar power, and even nuclear and “clean coal” technologies, require an updated electric grid because they are most often located in remote areas. The map above shows the Transmission Superhighway Vision put forth by the American Wind Energy Association and American Electric Power, an investor-owned utility that spans 11 states.

Photo Credit: AWEA

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Mass-market Solar Panels Could Result from Chipmakers’ Competition

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:30:32 +0000

As tech giants rush into the solar cell business, their competition promises to bring down the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels used to generate electricity. PV modules use silicon cells, which are also used in computer chips. But with the traditional chip business growing at only 5% annually, tech companies are looking for a new market niche to grow.

This is good news for the solar industry, where cost has been a barrier to wider acceptance. Thus far, technology improvements have lowered solar PV costs only marginally, with each improvement coming at a large research cost. Fierce competition on the part of the largest tech companies could change that. According to Paul Davidson in USA TODAY:

“Since May, computer powerhouses Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM) and National Semiconductor (NSM) have barreled into solar energy, joining hundreds of fellow technology mainstays. Virtually every chipmaker is weighing a solar play, says Rhone Resch, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association. ‘We have a classic Silicon Valley land rush,’ says T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor (CY), which owns 56% of SunPower. Drawing the stalwarts is solar’s 40% annual growth, says Gartner analyst Jim Hines.”

The savings will come largely in the area of automating manufacturing. How then, will the solar industry deal with the shortage of silicon? Semiconductor International rather mysteriously predicts that supplies of silicon will increase next year. Along with the shift to solar thin film technology, which uses little or no silicon, this may mean that mass-market adaptation is within reach.

Image Credit: Trend Labs Malware Blog

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Colleges Race to Earn “Most Sustainable Campus” Honor

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:38:01 +0000

Armed with a survey that found that 63% of college applicants would use a college’s environmental commitment as a reason to choose to go to school there, the Princeton Review has added a “green rating” to its college rating system. EcoAmerica partnered with the Princeton Review on the study of students’ attitudes about the environment.

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, a member organization of colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada working to create a sustainable future, is helping to lead an effort to raise higher education’s green score. According to today’s New York Times, colleges are doing the following things in their race to be the greenest campus:

Setting dates by which they will be carbon-neutral
Hiring sustainability coordinators
Buying green power through offsets

In a contest sponsored by the EPA, athletic conferences competed to see who could by the most green power and the ivy leagues won, with a combined 221.6 million kilowatt hours for the past quarter. However, colleges and universities are lagging behind in accomplishing more substantive actions.

“….some higher education officials worry that campuses are taking easy steps to win the label rather than doing the kind of unglamorous work — replacing air exchange systems, for example — that would actually reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Some campuses are changing little more than their press releases. ‘I don’t think we really have the tools to quantifiably test who’s doing the best and who’s not,’ says David W. Oxtoby, president of Pomona College. “It becomes a publicity hype type of thing.’”

Universities are dragging their feet in doing the kind of infrastructure improvements that would really move the needle, like:

Converting to alternative energy
Changing over to hybrid fleets
Retrofitting old buildings for efficiency
Composting their food waste
Offering sustainability throughout the curriculum

Let’s hope they can ramp up their efforts.

Image Credit: New York Times

Chip Makers Gear Up for Widespread Smart Meter Deployment

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:54:10 +0000

EDN reports that chip companies are gearing up to supply the widespread deployment of Smart Meters. Smart Meters provide real-time information on energy use so that homeowners can immediately see the effect of appliances, light bulbs, and computers on their energy usage and, their bills. Itron, Zigbee Alliance, Ember Corporation, and Teridian are some of the players in the smart metering arena that expect to ramp up production.

In the U.S., Smart Metering has been tried as a pilot program in several locations, including Chicago and the state of California. By all accounts, it has been a raving success. Duke Energy Indiana plans to install 800,000 Smart Meters starting this year. According to Energy Design, Strategy and News:

“Some 50 million old meters in the United States are likely to be replaced by advanced meters by 2010 at a cost of about $18 billion, according to a recent analysis by Deutsche Bank. Worldwide, only 6% of electricity, 8% of gas, and 4% of water meters are even automated, according to Texas Instruments Inc, which sells a variety of chips for meters. In fact, in the electric industry alone, 500 million meters worldwide could be replaced over the next 10 years, resulting in semiconductor sales of at least $7.5 billion..” Electronics Design, Strategy, News

Homeowners see the effect of their energy usage immediately. When a computer is turned on, the meter goes from 300 watts to 400 watts. An alarm rings when usage hits 500 watts. Said one homeowner: “I’ve become like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Every time it bleeps I think I’m going to take one of those pans off the stove. I’d do anything to make it stop. It helps you change your habits.” –New York Times

Technology to Make Ethanol from Municipal Waste Still on Hold

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:53:06 +0000

As ethanol from corn comes under fire due to rising corn prices, attention is turning to other ethanol sources. Plans are in the works to build a plant in northwest Indiana which would make ethanol from municipal waste. Approval of the plant was announced by the Lake County Solid Waste Management Board in January 2007.

And Chicago’s WBEZ reported this week that Indiana Ethanol Power is now ready to go with its plan. The technology, developed by James Titmas at GeneSyst, would produce 20 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol and other products each year.

According to Biofuels Digest, several cities, including New York, NY and Bridgeton, NJ, are on the verge of implementing such plants. Diverting municipal waste from landfills to make fuel-grade ethanol sounds like a win-win for everyone. And locating ethanol refineries near cities makes sense, because that’s where the mounds of garbage are. So what’s the holdup in Indiana? According to Indiana Ethanol Power’s Zig Resiak:

“Municipalities are very comfortable with putting it in the back of a truck and letting it go into a landfill. They don’t think about it twice. But for us to come in and say we’re going to take it cheaper and save you millions of dollars a year on your tipping fee, that’s different and that’s kind of scary, and they want to take a good, strong look at that.”

Sounds like a leadership vacuum. We hope that Indiana and Illinois (and Chicago and Gary) can get it together and follow the example of Edmonton, CA which just signed an agreement to begin production. The plant will initially produce 36 million litres of biofuels per year and reduce Alberta’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 6 million tons over the next 25 years, which is the equivalent of removing 12,000 cars from the road.

First Sustainable Ethanol to Mass Market?

Danish Island Becomes Energy Self-Sufficient: the Lesson of Samsø

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:36:21 +0000

Samsø, a Danish island in the North Sea, has become entirely energy self-sufficient, by using wind energy, solar and other renewables. The community was puzzled when it was announced in 1997 that it had won a government prize awarded to a community who would create a renewable energy plan; an engineer had submitted the entry without telling anyone but Samsø’s mayor. Interest was high after the award, but then fell off. It was Soren Hermansen, a lifelong resident of the island, who took on the task of turning the plan into action. The story of how he did it is a blueprint for other communities around the world.

In the nineties, the island of 4,300 people imported all their energy, mostly in oil tankers, and paid little attention to where it came from. In a fascinating article in The New Yorker magazine, Elizabeth Kolbert reports that:

“Then, quite deliberately, the residents of the island set about changing this. They formed energy coöperatives and organized seminars on wind power. They removed their furnaces and replaced them with heat pumps. By 2001, fossil-fuel use on Samsø had been cut in half. By 2003, instead of importing electricity, the island was exporting it, and by 2005 it was producing from renewable sources more energy than it was using.”

Image Credit: Joachim Ladefoged, The New Yorker

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San Francisco Testing Smartphone Technology to Find Parking, Save Gas

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:27:45 +0000

The City of San Francisco will test 6,000 of 24,000 metered parking spaces in a program that will help drivers immediately see where there is a free parking space by using a wireless sensor network. The information will be displayed at street level or on their cell phones. The experiment is being considered by a dozen U.S. cities, according to the New York Times.

San Francisco is trying to avoid the congestion pricing that London and Singapore have instituted to cut down on the amount of downtown traffic. The technology has been developed by Streetline, Inc. and DustNetworks(tm).

“….a study released in June by Transportation Alternatives, a public transit advocacy group, reported that 28 percent to 45 percent of traffic on some streets in New York City is generated by people circling the blocks. The study also said that drivers searching for metered parking in just a 15-block area of Coumbus Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side drove 366,000 miles a year.” — John Markoff, The New York Times

The system has other major benefits for a municipality:

Parking time limits can be adjusted based on time of day — to allow for more turnover during the business day while allowing for longer stays in evenings
Prices can be adjusted based on hourly demand.
“Percent occupied” goals can be monitored — SF wants only 85% of its parking spaces occupied, to avoid cars’ repeatedly circling blocks to search for a spot. In one small study in LA conducted over a year, “cars cruising for parking created the equivalent of 38 trips around the world, burning 47,000 gallons of gas and producing 730 tons of carbon dioxide.”
Allows city employees to monitor speed of traffic flowing on the street.

The system employs sensors embedded in the street in 4X4-inch plastic “bumps”, which are battery operated and designed to last 5-10 years without service.

The Sustainable, Rechargable Electric Car: Japan Takes Up the Challenge

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:36:02 +0000

We all love the idea of electric vehicles (EVs) rolling quietly down the road, emitting nothing. But our passion cools when we ask: where does that electricity come from and why can’t it come from renewable sources?

Japan, the island nation that likes to think ahead about energy and water conservation, is researching the infrastructure needed to achieve wide use of EVs. Mitsubishi and the Tokyo Institute of Technology are collaborating on developing charging stations powered by solar and wind. Mitsubishi will be using its incredibly appealing i-MiEV car in the infrastructure research project, which will tackle questions such as:

How to recharge during non-peak times, such as at night, so there is less impact on the environment
How to store off-peak energy so that it can be used to recharge EVs later
How to store energy from wind so that it is available when needed, and how to communicate that availability at a charging station.
How EVs will be used by actual drivers and how they might recharge them in solar-powered homes.

Field testing will include a concept home with solar PV panels and a charging post, from which the EV will be driven back and forth to the campus. A solar thermal dish using a Stirling engine will be used to generate power. Remote wind towers will be linked into the system as well.

Field testing started July 1 and will continue through March 31, 2010, under the auspices of the Advanced Energy Management (AEM) project promoted by the Integrated Research Institute of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. (Note to American car-makers: the Japanese are about to clean your clock again.)

Image Credit: TechOn , which also has good background on the story.

Coal-Power Can’t Stop Plug-in Hybrids from Beating Normal Cars

Financing Renewable Energy: Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Introduced in Congress

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:40:12 +0000

Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) has introduced legislation to establish a feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable energy. Feed-in tariffs have made Germany a solar powerhouse that employs 40,000 people in the solar industry alone, and an estimated 140,000 jobs in renewable energy. FITs have not been a topic of discussion in this country, but now that is sure to change, as the conversation shifts to ways to finance the growth of renewable energy. Renewable Energy World reports that:

“Inslee’s legislation would require utilities — at the request of any new renewable energy facility owner — to enter into a 20-year fixed-rate power purchase agreement. Uniform national “renewable energy payment” rates would be set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at levels that would provide a 10% internal rate of return on investment for available commercialized technologies in regions constituting the top 30^th percentile of renewable energy resource potential in the U.S..”

In plain English, this means that if you install solar PV panels on your home, the utility has to buy the electricity you generate at a higher rate than retail, guaranteeing you a return on your investment. Extending this power purchase agreement for 20 years gives everyone — especially those who want to invest in renewables or start a small business installing solar panels — assurance of return on their investment.

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Will High Gas Prices Kill Suburban Sprawl?

Carol Gulyas — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:59:38 +0000

When the award-winning film The End of Suburbia was released in 2004, it was considered by some to be an amusing but exaggerated view of what Peak Oil will do to the suburban way of life. As gas prices approach $5/gallon, it doesn’t seem quite so shocking.

As a passionate enemy of suburban sprawl, I listened intently to an interview this morning on NPR with Brookings Institution demographer William Frey in which he notes that housing prices are falling faster in the areas outside cities. Is this a permanent correction that is making “exurbs” less desirable overall? And how are gas prices influencing this loss of home value? Mr. Frey was cautious in his answer, saying “the jury is still out” and that Americans have a history of moving outward from cities in order to buy more housing for less, seeing long commutes as an acceptable trade off.

However, it doesn’t take a genius to see that, when a commute costs more than one is saving on housing, while sucking up hours of one’s valuable time, (and as the saying goes, “They aren’t making more of that”) why would one buy a home in the far suburbs? Why, indeed?

Sperling’s Best Places did a survey two years ago when gas prices were at $2.90 a gallon. The following were the most expensive cities in which to commute and listed the average annual commuting cost:

City Annual Commuting Cost (2006)

1. Atlanta $5,772
2. Birmingham, Ala. $5,464
3. Orlando, Fla. $5,404
4. Jacksonville, Fla. $5,360
5. Pensacola, Fla. $5,173

So, if gas prices reach $6.00, Atlanta’s commuting cost would be over $10,000 per year. Yikes.

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Distillery Recycles Waste to Create Methane-Rich Biogas

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:38:31 +0000

Renewable Energy World reports that Ecovation will create energy from distillery waste at the Maker’s Mark distillery in Kentucky. Ecovation, acquired by Ecolab in February, specializes in generating green energy from organic wastes created by distilleries and wineries, and other businesses using organic inputs, from paper mills to cheesemakers. Their website is full of cheese-related puns, as in The Whey to Renewable Energy.” To quote from the Renewable Energy World article:

“Maker’s Mark’s new facility will anaerobically treat the liquid portion of the whole stillage and process waters produced during bourbon-making, generating methane-rich biogas, a renewable energy source, that will offset 165 MMBtu, or 15 - 30%, of the facility’s natural gas consumption.”

Ecovation is also working with Simi Winery in Sonoma County, to help lighten the burden on publicly-owned treatment facilities by using an ecologically sound method of pre-treating wastewater. The company won a 2007 Environmental Excellence Award from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for its dairy waste stream management solution for Breyers Yogurt Co.

Image Credit: Maker’s Mark

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Molten Salt May Be Solution to Solar Energy Storage

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:44:02 +0000

While adoption of solar energy steps up around the world, two key challenges remain: how to store the energy created during the day so it can be used through the night and how to dispatch the energy to where it is needed. Both of these problems may be solved by coupling molten salt with concentrating solar power (CSP), according to a June 26 article in Renewable Energy World.

You will recall from previous CleanTechnica postings that CSP technology concentrates the sun’s power to create steam, which turns a turbine to make electricity. But how did molten salt get into the picture?

“Terry Murphy, Chief Executive Officer for SolarReserve, who along with others helped develop the molten salt technology at Rocketdyne. ‘Molten salt is a heat storage medium that retains thermal energy very effectively over time and operates at temperatures greater than 1000°F, which matches well with the most efficient steam turbines. Second, it remains in a liquid state throughout the plant’s operating regime, which will improve long-term reliability and reduce operation and maintenance costs. And third, it’s totally ‘green,’ molten salt is a non-toxic, readily available material…..’”

Molten salt storage was a key component of the Solar Grand Plan, published in Scientific American in December 2007, which outlined a plan to supply 69% of U.S. electricity and 35% of its total energy by 2050. The Grand Plan, written by By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis, proposes molten salt storage concentrating solar, among other proven technologies, and calls for an aggressive plan of government subsidies to allow solar energy to compete fairly with oil and other fossil fuels.

New Jersey May End Solar Rebate Program to Grow Market Faster

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:20:28 +0000

In New Jersey, demand for solar installations is high, but 700 customers are on waiting lists for solar rebates, and some smaller installers are laying off workers while waiting for the rebates to be funded. So the state is considering moving to a system of energy credits that can be traded on the open market, according to a story today in the New York Times. That’s because, while New Jersey has grown its solar market, now it needs to grow it even faster.

Solar must provide 2.12 percent of NJ electricity by 2020 to meet the state’s commitment, but is only providing only .07 percent thus far.
The state has paid out $170 million in rebates and 3,100 solar systems have been installed.
There is pressure to keep electricity rates from rising further, as NJ’s are some of the highest in the country, yet if rebates continue at the needed level, rates will rise even further. (Rebates are funded by surcharges on electrical rates.)

It is believed that energy credits would reward larger companies, allowing them to ramp up solar installations at a faster rate. This faster growth would also take the pressure off the state to supply rebate funds.

Image: Rob Bennett for The New York Times. Installing solar modules on the roof of Kohl’s

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Democrats Take On Challenge of Achieving a Green Convention

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:35:28 +0000

Having staffed a booth two years running at the Chicago Green Festival, I know what a challenge it is for meeting planners to stage a truly green convention. The Green Festival posts volunteers at the garbage cans, to help the public choose the right bin: compost, recycle, or trash. Exhibitors have to attend a conference call and sign a “leave no trace” agreement.

Now, it’s the DNC’s turn to wrestle with the inherent problems associated with inviting thousands of people to converge on a city for a giant party, while keeping their carbon footprints as low as possible. The Wall Street Journal’s front page story on “The Greenest Show on Earth” provides some insights into the problem:

After trying to source an organic, union made fanny pack to be given to volunteers, Bob DeMasse, the convention’s organizer reported that such a thing doesn’t exist.
The same goes for baseball caps: there are union caps and organic caps, but no cap with both requirements. (Come on, unions, step up!)
Andrea Robinson, the convention’s Director of Greening, is testing balloons to make sure they are really biodegradable — by burying them in steaming compost piles.
She has also hired an Official Carbon Advisor to measure the show’s carbon footprint so that it can be offset by investments in renewable energy.
“Lean and green” catering guidelines are calling for no fried food and 70% organic or local ingredients.
And, yes, the DNC will also have a team of garbage monitors.

Some inevitable compromises have resulted, but the Dems can at least be given credit for forcing everyone to think about the environmental impact of their meeting — and perhaps building a template for future meetings as well. It’s all part of an encouraging trend in the meeting planning business, which the Green Meeting Industry Council is helping to lead, and it’s creating ripples throughout the hospitality industry, evidenced by such organizations as the Green Hotels Association.

Image Credit: Kevin P. Casey, USA Today

EcoPower Faucet Saves Energy by Recharging with Each Use

Carol Gulyas — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:13:20 +0000

We are all familiar with touch-less faucets, which not only decrease infection rates but keep lazy people from letting the water run as they brush their teeth. Great idea, but an idea that requires electrical energy or a battery to run the infrared sensing device. Now Toto, the Japanese company that makes simple, elegant, and water-saving bathroom fixtures, has developed a touch-less faucet that also saves energy.

The EcoPower faucet contains a small turbine inside. The turbine, powered by the water running through the faucet, creates an electrical current that is stored in rechargable cells. The faucets supply the very energy they consume by using the flow of water to spin a high-efficiency turbine to both create and store power. Eco Power replenishes its charge with as few as 5 uses per day, and with as few as 10 uses a day, the backup battery itself is seldom used and can last up to 19 years. Elegant!

Atlantic City Convention Center Plans Largest Solar Roof in U.S.

Carol Gulyas — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:48:44 +0000

Giving a new meaning to the term “sun roof”, Atlantic City’s Convention Center will install solar photovoltaic (PV) modules on 290,000 square feet of roof space, saving a projected $4.4 million over 20 years, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger. In a groundbreaking economic arrangement, Pepco Energy Services, a subsidiary of Pepco Holdings, will pay to have the solar panels installed, and the Convention Center will then buy back the electricity from Pepco. The installation will provide a quarter of the energy consumed by the convention center. The Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) says the installation will be the largest in the U.S. on one roof.

“Jeffrey Vasser, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority, said the group began planning a solar project a few years ago when Gov. Jon S. Corzine pushed for greater use of sun and wind power in New Jersey.

‘We have a great building to do this on, and we wanted to be the first kid on the block to get in on it,’ Vasser said. This helps a young industry grow into a mature one, helps reduce our dependence on oil, and produces electricity that does not increase carbon emissions into the air,’ he said of the multi million-dollar project.”
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Green Options » Carol Gulyas

Greenpeace Staging Rolling Sunlight Tour to Showcase Solar Energy

Solar Thin Film Technology Attracts Big Players in Japan

SolCool Solar Air Conditioner Production to Ramp Up in China

Advanced Data Centers Has Built First LEED Platinum Data Center

Interstate Electricity Transmission Superhighway Essential to Growth of Low-Carbon Technologies

Mass-market Solar Panels Could Result from Chipmakers’ Competition

Colleges Race to Earn “Most Sustainable Campus” Honor

Chip Makers Gear Up for Widespread Smart Meter Deployment

Technology to Make Ethanol from Municipal Waste Still on Hold

Danish Island Becomes Energy Self-Sufficient: the Lesson of Samsø

San Francisco Testing Smartphone Technology to Find Parking, Save Gas

The Sustainable, Rechargable Electric Car: Japan Takes Up the Challenge

Financing Renewable Energy: Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Introduced in Congress

Will High Gas Prices Kill Suburban Sprawl?

Distillery Recycles Waste to Create Methane-Rich Biogas

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Democrats Take On Challenge of Achieving a Green Convention

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