Green Options

Steven Chu, US Energy Secretary, announced at the start of the Solar Decathlon on DC’s National Mall on Friday that the Department of Energy (DOE) would be dishing out an additional $87 million in new funding for the development and rapid deployment of solar energy technologies.

This money is being given to 47 projects in a range of sub-fields and sectors.

Billionaires for Wealth Care have created this rousing anthem to satirically support our nation’s for-profit health care industries. The group was counter-protesting at last week’s teabagger anti-health care reform 9/12 rally in Washington D.C. (which was funded by major health insurance corporations). The Billionaires were dressed in top hats, tuxedos and evening gowns, and carried placards like: “Fight Socialism—End Medicare Now!” and “Let Them Eat Advil!”.

According to the Billionaires’ website they are:

A grassroots network of health insurance CEOs, HMO lobbyists, talk-show hosts, and others profiting off of our broken health care system. We are not a political, religious or even particularly well-organized group. We’re simple folk, thrilled profiteers pouring out of our corner offices to dance on the grave of “Change.” We’ll do whatever it takes to ensure another decade where your pain is our gain. After all, when it comes to health care, if we ain’t broke, why fix it?

Thanks to wildlife authorities acting on a tip that led to the bear’s gruesome “burial site” on a family farm, two men are facing felony violations of the Endangered Species Act for shooting a grizzly bear in Washington State.

Two men accused of killing a grizzly bear while on a hunting trip in 2007 will finally appear before a federal magistrate in Spokane. According to kgw.com, wildlife authorities acted on a tip that led them to a bizarre “burial site” where the suspects had attempted to hide the bear.

Biologists have known for years that the low numbers of Southern Resident Killer Whales in Puget Sound may be tied to vessel traffic. A new plan for curbing vessel activity may help increase the population of these marine mammals.

New rules regarding vessel traffic have been proposed by NOAA’s Fisheries Service to provide additional protection of the Southern Resident Killer Whales (Orcinus orca). The regulations, if adopted, would take effect as early as May 2010.

According to today’s release by NOAA, the new proposal would curb vessel activity by:

• Prohibiting vessels from approaching any killer whale closer than 200 yards
• Forbidding vessels from intercepting or parking in the path of a whale
• Establishing a half-mile-wide no-go zone along the west side of San Juan Island from May 1 through the end of September, where generally no vessels would be allowed

Arizona wants to be the “solar-energy hub of the world,” Kristin Mays, chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities in the state, said at the Intersolar North America conference in San Francisco this week.

The state last week enacted a law that offers new incentives, including a tax credit of up to 10 percent, for solar companies that set up shop there.

At the Intersolar North America conference in San Francisco this week, some state rivalry became apparent as Arizona leaders argued the state’s advantages compared to California. “We know the Mojave desert’s off limits. Well, the desert in Arizona is open for business,” said Barry Broome, CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, to laughter from the audience.

75-megawatt solar plant would also create hundreds of new green jobs

Not all of the big solar projects coming down the pike in the West will be on public land. A team of private investors today announced plans to build a solar photovoltaic plant in the state of Washington that would be the largest of its kind in the world.

The 75-megawatt Teanaway Solar Reserve will be located on 400 acres of formerly-logged private property four miles north of Cle Elum, in Kittitas County, Washington. If built, the plant would generate enough power for an estimated 75,000 homes. Currently, the largest solar photovoltaic plant in the world is a 60-megawatt facility in Spain.

Teanaway has not secured power purchase agreements with the major electricity providers, but project developers are confident they will find a buyer. Howard Trott, Managing Director and principal investor for the Teanaway Solar Reserve, said “We’ve had very good meetings with local utilities.”

Bike commuting is a rewarding way to reduce your carbon footprint and save some cash at the same time. Not only is it great for your body and your mind, riding that bike to work keeps one more car off the road and means spending less money on gas.

Unfortunately, riding bikes means occasionally dealing with pitfalls like bad roads, dangerous intersections, and theft. It would be great if drivers were more bike-aware, but this just isn’t always the case. Seattle-based BikeWise is looking to take some of the unknown out of bike commuting, providing a tool to “make biking safer and more fun by gathering good data on the things that sometimes go wrong.”

So how does it work?

In these days of increased risk of identity theft, people are looking for ways to manage their sensitive materials. Get a shredding machine? Maybe. But typically, people would rather things be easier, in the stream of their other activities. So it often doesn’t happen, things piling up, or getting thrown away with some trepidation, or perhaps incinerated.

The Shred Stop seems to have hit on an idea that both integrates with the rest of people’s lives and does a better job then a personal size shredder could do, with a higher degree of environmental sensitivity.

It’s simple: locate them in grocery stores and other places that already have coin counting machines, charge $2/minute for shredding, able to do it much faster than your usual home/small biz shredder, and you’re able to quickly get done what would either not get done, where you’re already going anyway, or would otherwise take much more of your valuable time.

Yes, even the wind power is bigger in Texas. The Lone Star State held the top spot again in the just released American Wind Energy Association’s annual industry report.

In fact, if Texas was its own country it would rank sixth worldwide in production, with 7,118 megawatts installed. Texas added 2,671 MW just last year.

The AWEA report breaks down a record 2008 for wind power in the U.S. The U.S. now ranks ahead of Germany as the world’s top wind power producer. More than 8,500 MW of wind power came online last year, the report says, a more than 50 percent jump in U.S. production.

Senior US Representatives Henry Waxman (D-Calif) and Ed Markey (D-Mass) today released draft cap-and-trade legislation that would reshape US energy and climate policy through drastic cuts in emissions in the next 20 years and significant increases in renewables by 2025.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), intended to “create jobs, help end our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and combat global warming” according to the official announcement of the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, centers around four titles:

• A clean energy title that promotes renewable sources of energy, carbon capture and sequestration technologies, low-carbon fuels, clean electric vehicles, and the smart grid and electricity transmission;
• An energy efficiency title that increases energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy, including buildings, appliances, transportation, and industry;
• A global warming title that places limits on emissions of heat-trapping pollutants; and
• A transitioning title that protects U.S. consumers and industry and promotes green jobs during the transition to a clean energy economy.

The bill seeks emissions reductions greater than those proposed by the president: calling for a 20 percent cut in emissions from 2005 by 2020 instead of the 14 percent included in Obama’s Feburary budget. It also calls for utilities to produce one-quarter of US electricity from renewables sources by 2025, and includes a federal low carbon fuel standard modeled on California legislation.

The Humane Society of the United States has returned to court in attempt to stop the sea lion cull near the Bonneville Dam in Washington and Oregon.

Hundreds of sea lions may be trapped and killed in a program aiming to increase the salmon population in the river. The animal welfare group argues that the NOAA Fisheries Service has not sufficiently explained why the sea lions are being singled out despite other predators (like humans) having a greater impact on the salmon population.