If you happened to be in Chena, Alaska last weekend, you may have attended the third annual Chena Renewable Energy Fair, chowed on some hot dogs barbecued on the hydrogen-powered grill, toured the the geothermal power plant, or visited the Aurora Ice Museum that’s kept cool in the summer using the patented absorption chiller.

Bernie Karl is all about renewable energy. Proprietor of Chena Hot Springs Resort, located 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks and 33 miles off the grid, Bernie acquired the ramshackle resort in 1998 from the state of Alaska. From the very beginning Bernie’s vision was to run his operation using only the abundant thermal energy of the surrounding hot springs.

Despite having more geothermal resources than any other state in the country, Alaska hadn’t developed any of those resources until Bernie’s geothermal power plant came online in 2006. Developed in partnership with United Technologies Corporation, the patented power plant is the lowest temperature geothermal resource used for commercial power production in the world. A step many hope will spur development for low cost geothermal development throughout Alaska and the world.

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In addition to all the green rebuilding efforts underway throughout the Crescent City, existing homes that survived the post-storm flooding are also getting eco-friendly makeovers. Those efforts received a boost earlier this summer, when the New Orleans City Council approved the Energy Smart New Orleans Energy Efficiency Program.

Among the program’s goals

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If you’re unfamiliar with the program, here’s a bit of background: Energy Star is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Together, they established minimum standards for energy efficiency, above and beyond the federal standard. By purchasing Energy Star rated products, including clothes washers, dishwashers, refrigerators, and room AC units, Americans saved $16 billion on their utility bills in 2007 alone. Those lower utility bills translate into a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 27 million cars. Talk about a positive impact!

So when you’re ready to invest in a new appliance, you should definitely look for the Energy Star label. Many states even offer rebates on Energy Star appliances (check out the Database for State Incentives for Renewables and Energy Efficiencyfor details).

Even with Energy Star models, efficiency improvements can vary so it’s important to review all of the products available to select the best one for you. On the Energy Star site, each appliance category has its own product list that provides the details on each model’s efficiency. Here are a few standouts in each category:

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Look at what’s happening at some of these schools:

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“Can we solve our energy problems with existing technologies today, without the need for breakthrough innovations?”

This is the defining question of our time.

New innovations, improvements, or breakthroughs are happening all the time in clean tech, especially among renewable energy technologies. Yet technological limitations still plague the various industries. These hurdles include energy storage, energy efficiency, transmission infrastructure and technology, hydrogen power, CO2 capture and sequestration, and producing bio-fuels at an industrial scale. Economics is also a potent issue that both hampers and launches these technologies, hence the host of this debate.

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This plug n’ play system works with your USB 2.0 and 1.1 jacks, is Mac and PC compatible (phew!) and automatically turns on and off with your computer to conserve energy.

Did I mention how good looking it is? The hard drive is made with renewable bamboo and recyclable aluminum, the most recycled metal on the planet according to SimpleTech.

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This week at ZapRoot: The Strandbeest behemoth (which we featured here on CleanTechnica) is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Ice in both poles is melting. Totally Useless Crap is back!

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It took me awhile to see the word as CO-generation not COGeneration, and then another few minutes to understand just what cogeneration was, but I finally got there. And needless to say, I was immediately intrigued by the possibilities, and similarly confused as to the lack of implementation of cogeneration.

Cogeneration, according to the wonderful Wikipedia, is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat.

For example, look at a power station: in its production of our electricity, through the burning of fossil fuels like coal, a power station will often end up excising the generated heat by heating up water, and then venting the steam out through the massive cooling towers.

Imagine the opportunity we have to harness that heat, in addition to the electricity that is created.

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First of all, the installation went well and was completed in just two days.  The crew was very friendly, knowledgeable, and cleaned up nicely.  There was some inconvenience, in that we had to move furniture and other items away from the openings, especially when the window sizes were being changed.  Also, someone had to be home to let the crew in, and watch the cats.

The installation was well done, certainly in comparison with the original windows.  They are all tight to the outside trim, and the inside and outside are well caulked.  This should prevent air leakage and water intrusion that was occurring before.

As far as energy use differences, it has been hard to tell.  Penguin promises a 40% reduction in heating and cooling costs.  The weather has warmed up considerably since the installation, so the air conditioner is still running as much as it was before.  I will need to compare the costs for the next few months to the same period last year to see if there has been any significant changes.

As a homeowner, I am pleased with the quality of the windows and the installation.  We will have to see if the promised energy savings materialize over the next few months.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Idiocracy, you may have a vague fear of giant landfills toppling over and spilling into the streets. Fortunately, that fear may never become a reality now that the Powermaster ReCyclone is available.

The ReCyclone works by grinding trash into small pieces, thereby reducing landfill space up to 97 percent.

Trash compacted by the ReCyclone can be used to create energy or compost material—organic waste becomes diesel fuel, and plastic becomes oil. The machine can grind up any piece of waste ranging from 20 microns to 12 inches.

For some perspective, the ReCyclone can get more gold out of electronic devices than from a gold mine (one metric ton of circuit boards contains between 80 and 1,500 grams of gold, which is 40 to 800 times the concentration of gold available in gold ore mined in the United States) and 1 kilogram of plastic recycled in the machine can yield 95 percent of 1 liter of diesel.

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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.

Related Post: Cooling Data Centers Could Prevent Massive Electrical Waste

And now it has set its sights on bringing a measure of green to the country for which its woman and men die for.

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In a not so pastoral location surrounded by freeways and railroad tracks, the Eco Village offers a green sanctuary to local youth who wish to find a green place to learn and relax. The farm grows a variety of vegetation including: fruit trees, Oaks, Beach, Banana, California Buckeyes, Bay Laurels, Blackberries and Walnuts.

The recently added solar system not only will decrease their energy bill but many young Richmond residents received an opportunity to help install the system. The program sponsored by Solar Living Institute, Solar Richmond, Rising Sun Energy Center, Sun Light & Power, SunPower Corporation and Bay Area Air Quality Management District brought a human element to the system by providing access for disadvantaged children to gain skills and interest in the green business movement.

We’re big fans of this project not just because of the reduced carbon footprint but the program gives youth an opportunity to become more eco-literate, as it creates a cross cultural dialogue and moves across economic lines as well. Learning about Green power, grey water harvesting and urban food production isn’t just for people who can afford it.

We’d like to see more solar training and eco-literacy spread from the suddenly Green city of Richmond.

In the race to implement new energy sources, farms have an advantage: lots of manure. A large chicken farm north of Beijing is taking advantage of this fact by using its chicken manure to generate power and heat. And this isn’t just a small-time farm—the 3 million chickens on the farm produce 220 tons of manure and 170 tons of wastewater each day.

The Deqingyuan Chicken Farm Waste Utilization Plant, which is replacing a coal-fired plant, will reduce CO2 emissions by 95,000 tons a year. It will also provide 14,600 MWh of electricity each year.

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The idea is that these high tech systems will minimize or eliminate the wasted energy from lights left on by accident, vampire loads from home equipment in the “off” state, thermostats set too high or low for usage patterns or climate conditions, etc - the automation systems themselves will set things right even if you forget. We’ve certainly written about how important it is to kill of these wasteful elements, but are they big enough to warrant buying one of these systems just to reduce them?

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The technology works by using accelerated electrons to stimulate a phosphor coating on the inside of the glass bulb. In contrast, incandescent bulbs run a current through a filament inside the bulbs, and LEDs stimulate semiconductors to create light.

The first ESL prototype is expected to output 40 lumens per watt with a 6,000 hour lifetime.

So why is the ESL bulb any better than CFLs or LEDs?

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In the wake of this week’s unexpected resignation of EERE chief Andy Karsner, I find the below excerpt from the newsletter more than just a little interesting. Was Karsner resigning in protest to the Senate GOP’s blockage of renewable energy tax credits? Or was Karsner recognizing that all of his efforts with renewable energy were going to be all for not, because he was employed in an administration hell-bent on petroleum? Whatever the answer is, it is hard to believe all of these events are merely coincidental.

From the EERE newsletter:

U.S. Agencies Look to Oil Shale and the Arctic for Petroleum

With world oil prices near record levels, the United States is investigating ways to increase domestic petroleum production. According to DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States currently consumes 24% of the world’s oil but produces only 10% of it, causing us to import about 60% of the oil we consume. One potential new source of domestic petroleum is oil shale, a fine-grained sedimentary rock containing organic matter from which oil can be produced. The largest known deposits are located in a 16,000-square-mile area covering parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, of which about 72% is on federal lands. Last week the Bureau of Land Management published proposed regulations for establishing a commercial shale oil program. Commercial development is not expected for several years, but the U.S. Department of Interior estimates that Western oil shale potentially holds 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The United States consumed about 20.7 million barrels per day in 2006, so that’s more than a century of current U.S. oil consumption. See the Interior Department press release and the EIA’s “Energy in Brief” on U.S. oil consumption.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has completed its assessment of the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and natural gas that exists north of the Arctic Circle, an area that includes the northern one-third of Alaska. According to the USGS, about 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil lie north of the Arctic Circle, including about 30 billion barrels of oil in the “Arctic Alaska” region, which extends to the north, east, and west of Alaska. That sounds like a lot, but it’s barely four years of U.S. oil consumption. With a decreasing amount of sea ice in the Arctic, many Northern nations are now considering the future possibility of offshore oil exploration in the Arctic Circle. See the USGS “ Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal.”

Of course, other options available in the United States are increased drilling of conventional resources and reduced petroleum demand. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), domestic oil and gas drilling is already up, with 50% more exploratory well drilled in the second quarter of 2008 than in the corresponding period a year ago. While most of that drilling is targeting natural gas, an estimated 5,219 oil wells were completed in the second quarter, marking the highest number of second-quarter oil well completions since 1986. The API also notes that U.S. oil demand was down significantly for the first half of 2008, with deliveries of all oil products down by 3%, for an average demand of 20.08 million barrels per day. As a result, U.S. oil imports sank to their lowest first-half level since 2003, at less than 13 million barrels per day. See the API press releases on the drilling activity and the petroleum demand.

Doesn’t it seem to you that it is outside the office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s scope of responsibility to be preaching about the benefits of developing oil-shale and drilling in the arctic?

Related Posts:

• Assistant Secretary of Energy Andy Karsner Announces Resignation
• Bush Administration Proposes Fire Sale of Rocky Mtns. for Oil Shale Development
• Billions of Barrels Under the Bakken Shale

Another win for LED bulbs: Anchorage, Alaska plans to replace 16,000 streetlight fixtures—a quarter of all the streetlight fixtures in the city—with LEDs. The new streetlights will use 50% less energy than current fixtures, leading Anchorage to potential savings of $360,000 each year. The city has invested $2.2 million in the plan.

Since Anchorage has 85 days a year with less than 8 hours of sunlight, energy efficiency initiatives are critical to the city’s survival. With other programs currently in the works, they’re on the right track.

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Emerging out of thin air, it has already surpassed solar and wind as the largest cleantech industry. Carbon credits were worth a staggering $63 billion in 2007 and $59 billion in the first half of 2008 alone.

Europe has dominating the carbon market since its creation less than five years ago. EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was responsible for 70% of the trading in the first half of this year, totaling $47 billion. This dollar amount is likely to increase as the cost of carbon credits soars and with the inclusion of aviation emissions in 2012.

Obviously an industry of this amount of rapid growth opens many business opportunities. Companies are needed to provide verified emissions offsets, energy efficiency audits, greenhouse gas emission audits, and to design carbon software. This industry has gained considerable interest from venture capitalists.

Carbonetworks of Victoria, British Columbia provides software to evaluate carbon footprints and reduction options for businesses, governments, project developers, and consultants. They are located in one of the few areas in North America with a carbon tax. They recently announced the first close of a $5 million Series A round from NGEN Partners.

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The Army had begun pushing for environmental sustainability in all of their bases, starting with Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And they’re thinking it through as well; not only are they thinking about the current footprint (I’m not going to say it), they’re thinking about the future as well. Since 2001, each village set up within Fort Bragg for training purposes has been made up of shipping containers, reducing the cost from $400,000 to $25,000, and keeping the shipping containers out of the solid waste stream.

But the goal is not solely to save money, but also lives as well.

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