Green Options

It’s the secret that so many big box retailers already know: prices are lower when you buy in bulk. San Francisco-based 1 Block off the Grid has taken that mindset and applied it to solar power with amazing results. Now, the company is adding its very first east coast solar campaign in northern New Jersey.

In an attempt to step up pressure on the developing countries to take up ambitious emissions reductions and forcing them to move to renewable energy sources for power generation, a high ranking US official has written to the World Bank recommending it to stop financing coal-fired plants in the developing countries.

In a letter written to the World Bank, the United States Executive Director at the World Bank Group, Whitney Debevoise said that multilateral development banks like the World Bank have the responsibility of building a financing framework that ensures mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and strengthens the developing countries economies against climate change.

It’s not a team from the Sunshine State (Florida), but one from equally sunny California. The NBA team with a huge new solar installation is the Golden State Warriors.

You may think that putting some solar panels on a practice facility isn’t a big deal. But when you consider that this solar installation will save the team $2 million in electricity costs over the next couple of decades ($36,000 in its first year of operation), that changes things a bit.

The Golden State Warriors cut the ribbon on this new installation on Thursday, January 21^st.

The 3,000 members of the Jemez Pueblo tribe in New Mexico are looking to build the first utility-scale solar power plant on tribal land. They are also looking to make some money on it.

It is no secret that Native American tribes are more likely to be poverty-stricken and they generally have more than twice the unemployment rate of the United States. Former Jemez Pueblo governor James Roger Magdalena says, “We don’t have any revenue coming in except for a little convenience store.”

It is estimated this solar power plant could generate $25 million over the next quarter century and help create a sustainable revenue for his tribe.

Google is doing a lot these days to help the environment. Now, they have just filed to buy and sale wholesale electricity. Are they looking to enter the utility market?

Highways, train stations, and even dance floors: the world is full of vibrating surfaces that could yield a rich trove of clean, sustainable energy.  It’s called piezoelectric energy, formed by the conversion of mechanical strain into electrical current.  Now a team of researchers in Europe has developed a micro-scaled piezoelectric device that could harvest energy from machinery as well as from infrastructure and buildings.

The tiny devices are ideal for use in powering remote sensing equipment, for example to monitor bridges or machines for early signs of deterioration. In that case they could play a key role in more energy efficient maintenance for wind turbines and other renewable energy infrastructure, while lowering human risk.

Wave energy seems to be Scotland’s lottery number. Scotland-based energy developer Pelamis just signed a joint venture agreement with the European energy giant Vattenfall for a large, almost $100 million energy project off Scotland’s Shetland Islands. This follows the recent launch of Oyster, reportedly the largest working hydro-electric wave energy device in the world, by the Scottish government and partners.

This new project by Pelamis and Vattenfall is being named Aegir, named after a Norse mythological sea god. It is Scotland’s largest wave power scheme.

A London-based green investment firm, Earth Capital Partners (ECP), aiming to create a €750 million ($1 billion) renewable energy fund, announced this last week that it had reached its first round fund-raising target. By November 2010, it hopes to reach its total goal of €750 million.

The company is happy with this progress and believes there is demonstrated investor interest in this topic now. Even without an international, legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy, investors are moving forward on this.

With the amount of capital ECP is raising, what types of energy this investment firm is specifically interested in is important. They seem to be aiming at specific sectors of the market.

India’s proposal to set up a network of climate innovation centers across the world for the development of affordable clean energy technologies for the developing and poor countries has gained approval ‘in-principle’ at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

The issue of technology transfer has been a contentious one with the developed countries fearing loss of billions of dollars once their companies share or give up the intellectual property rights for the clean energy technologies. The developing countries, on the other hand, demand access to clean energy technologies so that they can improve their power generation and manufacturing efficiencies to reduce their carbon emission outputs.

Although the details of this proposal have not been worked out yet, it seems to be a much better solution to the proposal of actual transfer of clean energy technologies to the developed and poor countries. Through CICs the developed and developing countries can collaborate on developing affordable clean energy technologies best suited for the local conditions.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) just released a comprehensive global report, and the first country by country ranking, of clean energy technology sales.

The clean energy sector is on the verge of becoming the third largest sector in the world now. The report — Clean Economy, Living Planet - Building Strong Clean Energy Technology Industries — finds that Denmark is currently the leading country in clean energy sales (relative to GDP), Brazil is second and Germany is third (the top three in absolute terms are Germany, the US and Japan).

With the sector booming, there is much opportunity for growth in these countries and others now. The report delves into how the countries currently leading the world got to the top and makes a short list of best practices.

Clean energy technology sales were about $921 billion in 2007 (€630 billion), but are expected to become about $2339 billion per year (€1600 billion) in 2020. At that volume, the sector is expected to only be behind automobiles and electronics in global sales. This is even without a strong, binding deal in Copenhagen.

Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF’s global climate initiative, says: “This is the clean economy growth happening now with only a partial Kyoto protocol international framework supporting clean energy development, patchy national support for green energy and huge subsidies to fossil fuel use.”

I think the growth in the future is liable to skyrocket with more and more countries getting serious about stopping human-induced catastrophic climate change. Plus, clean energy is an economic benefit for countries as it creates more jobs for the countries’ citizens.

Donald Pols, Head of the Climate Programme at WWF-Netherlands, says: “Clearly, from a national perspective there is much to gain and nothing to lose from investing in clean energy.”

Where do the US and the UK fit into this matter? And what are their and other countries’ best chances for becoming industry leaders?

A new comprehensive study of the PV market in each US state and the US as a whole comes to some interesting and hopeful conclusions. One finding is that the US might surpass Germany as the leading PV market in the world within the next few years.

The report finds that, over the next four years, the US PV market will see growth in demand increase more than any other nation. The research company, Greentech Media (GTM) Research, expects an annual growth of about 48% (on average) in the base case scenario, totalling 1,515 MW in 2012.

In an “upside” economic scenario, the US will reach 2,022 MW in 2012 and pass up Spain and possibly Germany to become the leading PV market in the world.