Green Options

One of the biggest problems with solar cells currently on the market is that they are extremely easy to break. Companies intent on manufacturing any sort of solar powered products have to find solutions, and few have yet been perfect. Hoping to change this trend, Dupont recently announced the launch of two new lines of encapsulants specifically designed to contend with the trials inherent in manufacturing photovoltaic products.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  In the case of St. Thomas 7-Hot Pepper Sauce, it was definitely the chicken.  Without the chicken, there wouldn’t be the fertilizer to grow the hot peppers to make the hot sauce that the sent kids from the St. Thomas projects in New Orleans Lower Garden District off to college.

And without the chickens, Derek Hoeferlin and his architectural students from Washington University would not have had reason to take interest in this little community garden which has begun to harbor interest for it’s uniquely designed “urban chicken coop”, the story of its recovery post-Katrina and the sustainability recipe it holds for other communities across America.

This new column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

At the outset of this week, it looked like the Swine flu might be the largest influenza epidemic since the virus that wiped out a significant portion of the world’s population at the end of the first World War. Local economies everywhere have been affected given that people have stopped going out for fear of “The SuperFlu.”

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If you could design the green home of your dreams, what would it look like? What would it be made of? How would it produce and consume energy?

New York City’s Empire State Building is the latest poster child for green innovation. Earlier this week, Anthony Malkin, president of W&M Properties, the company that owns the building, announced that they would begin a $500 million self-financed program to renovate the world famous landmark – $100 million of which would be used to reduce the building’s energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Legacy electricity grids, the current distribution systems used for a century in the US, are highly inefficient…7%, never makes it to the user, lost at the transmission and distribution levels…..Environmentalists and others have been pushing for smart-grid technology for over a decade because it will enable consumers to use less electricity and benefit the environment.

Starting on Friday, February 27th, 10,000 students and other young people from across the country will converge upon Washington D.C. to demand immediate action on green jobs and climate change.

The Power Shift ’09 (www.powershift09.org) summit kicks off on Friday, February 27 and culminates on Monday, March 2, when the youth and their families will don green hard hats and gather on the steps of the Capitol.

There is plenty enough to know about all the trash we create and the wastefulness of our ways. But when you meet Colorado architect, Doug Eichelberger, you are happy to find a person who is all about solutions, putting trash to use as a building material.

A visit to his Lucky Ranch reveals a very special looking barn, built out of trash. He used scrap plastic for the foundation blocks, then erected walls of baled trash paper. The wall materials were inexpensive and provided excellent insulating quality, says Eichelberger.

President Obama has come under the radar. Publications like the Huffington Post and the Financial Times are questioning whether he has failed already. Why? Because Tim Geithner has proposed a bailout plan for zombie banks that capitalists believe should be allowed to fail.

A recent study in the UK revealed that energy generated by communities can produce about 13% of all Britain’s household power needs.  With the right policies in place this potential could rise to 54%, according to the report. Similar studies in the US indicate this kind of potential’s there in the US as well.

A US example of how businesses are responding to the new realities is the Southeastern Texas company GreenPointe Holdings LLC. The company was launched a few months back by Ed Burr, a seasoned real estate developer. He plans to develop financially feasible eco-friendly communities throughout the Southeast and Texas. Burr is aiming to coordinate with public/private partnerships to get infrastructure projects going.
“Our company is unique because we are fusing the concepts of green building and sustainability, and the interlocking function of public/private partnerships,” Burr was quoted as saying in a US newspaper.

The company’s Jacksonville offices are a live testimony to this business strategy. Energy saving air conditioners are placed on the roof, climate neutral carpets line the floors, the bathrooms have been fitted with double flushing toilets, appliances in the kitchen are Energy Star rated and the walls sport eco friendly paint.  Oh, and there’s the lighting – all energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs. Everything has been thought of.

The company aims to build residential developments in much the same style. But it’s not only housing that Burr is going to focus on; he’s all about infrastructure. And that means roads, sewage systems and other structural public developments are going to emerge under his supervision.

Cash, that most basic element of our economy, can be in abysmally short supply for new young families scraping by on marginal jobs.

Sustainable housebuilding may not be foremost in their minds.

But one young couple in Wales managing on an annual income of just $10,000 went ahead and built their own cheap home anyway, sustainably, mostly out of materials from “a rubbish pile somewhere.”