Green Options

The U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that up to $32 million dollars of Recovery Act funding will be used to expand the harvest of hydroelectric power. “There’s no one solution to the energy crisis, but hydro-power is clearly part of the solution and represents a major opportunity to create more clean energy jobs,” said Secretary Chu.

Segway inventor Dean Kamen is developing a hybrid electric scooter that can run on almost anything that burns.

According to the patent, the bike has a small two-piston Stirling engine right under the seat. Though with an engine of that size, it really isn’t going to provide much juice - not much more than 5bhp.

A Stirling engine is based on tech which predates internal combustion engines by almost 100 years. It’s kinda like a steam engine in the sense that it uses external combustion. They use pistons for the crankshaft, but unlike the alternatives they have no valves for no gas ever enters or leaves the cylinders.

On an historic day which proved America’s spirit during the Revolutionary War, the spirit of America was again proved. As news came that Nevada’s unemployment rate hit a record high of 11.3 percent, Senate majority leader Harry Reid addressed the people whose roles are instrumental in helping America survive.

At a cleantech panel about business opportunities running up to the 2012 Olympics in London, Dallas Kachan, managing director for the Cleantech Group, said that the second quarter “looks a lot like the first quarter” for cleantech investing so far.

In other words, it’s still down from last year, but deals are still happening and money is still available, he said. “The amount of investment is not continuing to plummet; it’s stable,” Kachan said. “Some might say we’ve reached bottom.”

The United States have already started down the path of Renewable Portfolio Standards.

There are now almost 30 states with their own RPSes, which require utilities to generate more of their power from renewable sources, like wind and solar and even landfill gas. Different states have set different standards, often with percentages based on years: 15 percent by 2015, for instance. It’s more catchy that way.

Now Congress [...]

While investing in clean energy projects in developing countries, the developed nations must not ignore their responsibility to reduce domestic carbon emissions.

By David Sassoon. Originally published May 28, 2009, at Solveclimate

If Florida embraced its solar and wind power potential and got 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020, it would create 37,000 new jobs, generate more than $16 billion in economic activity by 2025, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 319 million tons, a new study commissioned by the state Department of Environmental Protection shows.

The just-released report examined 28 policy measures in Republican Gov. Charlie Crist’s 2008 Climate Action Plan, including the 20 percent by 2020 renewable electricity standard.

In all, it found that implementing the full Climate Action Plan could add almost 150,000 new jobs and bring almost $40 billion in increased economic activity to the Sunshine state.

Unfortunately, the Florida legislature undermined the governor’s efforts to turn that renewable energy standard into law this spring during what longtime observers of the statehouse said was one of the most dysfunctional and depressing legislative sessions in memory.

Conservatives don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to protecting our citizens.

By Mindy S. Lubber, president of Ceres, a leading U.S. coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest organizations working with companies to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change. Originally published at SolveClimate.

Tom Benson, owner of the World’s Largest Laundromat in Berwyn, Ill., is tired of listening to conservative industry groups’ bluster that climate change legislation is bad for business.

That’s because clean energy saved his.

When Benson bought his business a decade ago, all that hot water helping scrub everything from Speedos to sheets ate up a staggering 25 percent of total monthly revenues. With 153 washers using thousands of gallons of hot water daily, you can only imagine the energy costs. And that’s before factoring in the 148 dryers.

So to cut his natural gas costs, Benson installed a solar hot water system on his roof. Three dozen 10-by-4-foot solar panels now produce more than 2,400 gallons of hot water daily, saving him some $25,000 a year.

“Our energy bills could have sunk this business,” says Benson. “Now, they’re a source of pride.”

Falling into the category of “I guess it’s better than nothing,” the state of Georgia has passed a bill that will use economic stimulus funds to provide retroactive grants to organizations that have already installed clean energy projects.

NASA’s new ingeneous design calls for using large plastic bags, made of forward-osmosis membranes, and filled with sewage for offshore harvesting of algae for bio-fuel. Don’t expect any protests against this “offshore” oil-generation!