Green Options

You can’t beat the satisfaction of making the world a cleaner, more pristine place. For this reason, more and more people want green jobs. The more President Obama talks about them, the better they sound. In reality, many of us can have a tremendous impact, without working for a wildlife reserve or a solar energy company.

Here are some ways to green your existing job:

Start a Game
People love competitions, even if it is ultimately for a mundane goal. What department can reduce their electricity use the most or have the largest number of employees commute by bike? How can you replace bottled water consumption with filtered tap water?

“We have people here in our offices that are creating contests around printing,” said Matt Arnold, Partner, Pricewaterhouse Coopers in an interview with PlanetSave. “Think about how day-to-day this can get. We are having a contest to see who can print the least, floor by floor, department by department. We are keeping score and it’s a little game. The people that designed it are having a blast and we’re reducing paper consumption.”

Although some of the heavy hitters are still major players, 2008 has shown growth in renewable energy markets that had been weak previously. New players however are entering the renewable energy field, according to Clean Energy Trends 2009 report.
France
The vast majority of the electricity generated in France comes from its 59 nuclear reactors. It has not been considered a global leader in renewable energy, but France has taken some bold steps recently to support growth in this industry.

The government plans to have 23% of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources including hydroelectric by 2020. A feed-in tariff of 30 Euro cents for commercial buildings has been introduced to encourage solar energy growth.

France now exceeds Denmark in wind energy capacity after adding 950 MW in 2008. The country currently has 3,400 MW of wind power and plans to increase this to 25,000 MW by 2020.

Energy efficiency is low hanging fruit in the clean energy movement.  Low-grade waste heat may not have the allure of shiny solar panels or a row of wind turbines, but it presents an opportunity that is too good for Michael Newell, CEO of Ener-G-Rotors to pass up. The company is developing a product that generates electricity from low-grade waste heat.

“We are making electricity from a free fuel and not using a fossil fuel,” Michael Newell said this week in an interview with TriplePundit. “Every kilowatt you are generating from our system is a kilowatt you don’t need from fossil fuels.”

U.S. schools spend more on utilities than books and computers combined.
Public schools spent $8 billion on utilities in 2002, up by $2 billion from 2000, and the fluctuating utility and oil prices can be daunting when planning for the future.  Although natural gas and oil prices have come down significantly from their high last July, it is important to remember their recent impact.

The solar industry has taken a beating lately. At their low in November, solar stocks were down 70%. Natural gas and oil prices have plunged, reducing the value of renewable energy. Financing is scarce, making the upfront cost of solar energy a challenge.

Perhaps these conditions will encourage innovation. Here are some tactics for solar companies to weather the storm in the short-term:

Imagine using only the energy from the sun to power your home. You would never have to pay an electric bill again and or be impacted by power outages.  It may sound great, but there are numerous advantages to having a solar home that is on-the-grid when available.

Enerkem’s plant outside Montreal, Quebec is now mechanically complete and ready to enter the start-up phase of biofuel production.  At capacity, 1.3 million gallons of biofuels will be generated annually.  The company has not disclosed the price of the ethanol but says it is cheaper than the corn-based ethanol currently on the market.

Waste wood from used electricity poles will be the negative-cost feedstock used.  One metric ton is required to produce 95 gallons of ethanol.  Compared to other feedstock, wood does not have a high energy density.

Enerkem has developed a proprietary gasification process that allows biofuels to be produced from non-homogeneous materials.  It is important however to ensure that contaminants such as arsenic are not present, which is a challenge when using such feedstock.

It is hard to boot up the computer or turn on the television without hearing about the recession, credit crisis, budget deficits, and unemployment rates.  Amazingly, venture capital investment in the clean tech sector reached new levels over the first three quarters of 2008.

With Obama as President-elect, solar stock prices must be sky high at the moment, right? Wrong. If you look at the values of most stocks around election day, they did increase. This peak was short lived however for most solar companies and it was followed by a huge decline.
Just how steep are we talking?
Akeena Solar
(NASDAQ:AKNS) is a large US-based solar installers for residential and commercial systems in California, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. Their stock was valued at nearly $17 at the beginning of the year and is now just above $2.
Ascent Solar
(NASDAQ:ASTI) is based in Colorado and produces high efficiency, thin film solar products. They saw stock prices rise to over $25 a share at the beginning of the year, but are currently under $4.

Americans have heard a great deal about hope and change during this election season. Together, those two words evoke a compelling vision for the future of our nation.