Green Options

The US Treasury gave another $550 million in stimulus funds for renewable energy this week. This brings the total to over $1 billion.

The economy is down, but here is another sign that green technology may be the way out of our economic dilemma. US clean energy patents hit a record high last quarter.

How long did the idea that green issues and the economy were in competition proliferate the US? For decades. Now, top-of-the-world entrepeneurs, the President of the United States, leading representatives in Congress, and research institutes are saying that green jobs and a green economy are the way to a healthy economy. Recent statements by Barbara Boxer (Senator from California), John Doerr (venture capitalist who helped to launch Google and Amazon.com), Obama, and a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts state that the only way to lead the world in the 21st century is to lead in green energy and green jobs.

In reference to Thomas Friedman’s book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, Boxer said yesterday: “The nation that aggressively addresses the issue of climate change will be the nation that will thrive, the nation that will lead, and the nation that will prosper.”

“We all remember this time last year,” said Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., at a hearing on Capitol Hill on Monday. “We were in the midst of an energy crisis, paying $4 for a gallon of gasoline, and Americans were seeing their utility bills skyrocketing.” Since then, he went on to say, the energy problems haven’t disappeared and no changes in policy have been made.

Fuel cell technology is a pollution-free electricity generation technology that is expected to compete with traditional methods of creating and distributing electricity. Fuel cells can be likened to a continuously fuelled battery that operates by using the chemical properties of hydrogen and oxygen to create useable electric current.

Am I the only one who noticed that Sarah Palin has pulled a huge switchover when it comes to her take on energy policy?

Because it’s dramatic, and may presage the switch that I have been hoping for for a while: the divorce of the idea that a Conservative Environmentalist in politics is an oxymoron.

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!

The algae! Yes – the same slimy brown-green ‘plant’ that makes a pond or a lake look yucky – is the creating a great buzz as the most promising source of alternative energy. And now nanotechnology is being leveraged to add some more zing to the promise!

It’s plentiful, it’s homegrown, and it could help clean up the environment while powering our cities. The idea of transforming algae into a fuel is a reality. Nowadays there are numerous implementations of algae into the renewable energy market.

Ontario, Canada presented legislation on Monday to encourage renewable energy growth. The government estimates the act would create 50,000 new jobs.

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act of 2009, if passed, would implement a feed-in tariff to fund renewable energy construction. It would also boost domestic requirements for renewable energy, a move that would create jobs in many sectors, from steel mills and law firms.

“Ontario’s Green Energy Act could propel the province past California as the most innovative North American leader in the renewable energy field,” said Denis Hayes, the former director of the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory and founder of Earth Day. “This is the sort of healthy, friendly competition between Canada and the US that will leave us both better off.”

Off-shore wind power could generate enough electricity to supply every home in the UK by the end of the next decade, the government announced.

One of 30 wind turbines in the Kentish Flats wind farm, which produces up to 90 MW of renewable energy for the UK.

Another 5,000-7,000 wind turbines could generate enough electricity by next decade, concludes a British government energy department study.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change study concluded that another 5,000-7,000 wind turbines could be built off the coast by 2020, generating 25 GW of energy, equivalent to 25 large coal-fired power stations. The new capacity would be on top of 8GW already being built or in planning, making a total of 33GW.

The results of the year-long research into the geology, birds and marine life goes even further than the Carbon Trust, a company set up by government to help businesses reduce carbon emissions, which last year said the UK could build a total 29GW of off-shore wind.

However, the announcement was clouded by claims from the energy company E.ON that the economics of what is the UK’s biggest current off-shore wind project, the London Array off the coast of Kent and Essex, were “on a knife edge”.