January 2008
Monthly Archive
Kansas town destroyed by tornado hopes to rebuild as “Greenest Town in America”
Posted by admin on 31 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: LEED
A 1.7 mile wide tornado last May destroyed the town of Greensburg, KS last May. City officials decided to rebuild their town using green standards.
So far, the plans include more than a dozen new buildings that meet the LEED standards from the US Green Building Council (USGBC). In December, Greensburg’s city council passed a resolution requiring all major city buildings attain LEED Platinum status – the USGBC’s highest standards for efficiency and sustainability – making it the first city to do so. Other businesses in town are getting in on the action, too: the General Motors dealership is rebuilding as a model green dealership to LEED-equivalent standards with support from GM headquarters; the Baptist Church is coming back LEED Platinum; a senior housing project is pursuing LEED Gold certification; so is the hospital, John Deere dealership, and banks. Plenty of local residents have caught the green building bug as well. And in perhaps the greatest irony, there’s also talk of harnessing wind power for the community’s energy needs.
Honeywell solar arrays to power four schools in San Diego, California
Posted by admin on 29 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Solar
Honeywell has entered into an agreement with the Poway school district of San Diego, California, to install large photovoltaic arrays at four schools and to sell the resulting electricity to the district for 20 years. This allows the school system to start using renewable power immediately without a capital investment.
Honeywell will install the solar arrays on the roofs at Poway High School, Westview High School, Oak Valley Middle School and Chaparral Elementary School. The arrays are expected to generate a collective 578 kilowatts of power and more than 1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually — enough energy to power 90 homes per year. They also will cut energy costs during peak consumption when utilities typically charge a premium.
Profits from LEED designs
Posted by admin on 29 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: LEED
A theme emerging from the Winter Market interior design show at San Francisco’s Design Center was that green designs can be profitable designs:
Profitability is different for designers than it is for clients, of course, but more than one speaker pointed out that if designers can prove to their clients that they will profit from opting for sustainable design – in energy savings, in health, in the marketplace – the designer stands to make money as well.
Energy Island: floating laboratory for ocean thermal energy conversion
Posted by admin on 28 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: OTEC
Richard Branson would like to give out $25 million of his money for research into renewable energy, and three Australians would like to win that money to build “energy islands,” floating electricity-generating platforms that use the difference in temperature between surface water and deep water for power.
The US National Renewal Energy Laboratory estimates that the world’s tropical seas absorb the solar power equivalent of 250 billion barrels of oil per day. OTEC uses warm surface water to vaporize a fluid with a low boiling point, typically ammonia or propane, and pumps cooler water from depths of up to 1000 meters below the surface to re condense the fluid. The movement of the liquid through the system is enough to continually power a turbo-generator.
Hot springs power Alaskan resort
Posted by admin on 28 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Geothermal
Chena, Alaska is a resort community 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks. The resort is so remote that it is miles from the nearest electric grid. Chena has been using the hot springs to attract tourists to the resort but also to heat buildings and other resort attractions.
The 165-degree water heats and vaporizes refrigerant (like that used in car air conditioners), which has a lower boiling point that water has. The refrigerant vapor then turns a turbine that produces electricity. To restore the refrigerant back to its liquid state, 40-degree water from a nearby creek condenses the vapor back into a liquid so that the process can be repeated. As an article in Popular Mechanics explains, the power plant is similar to refrigeration equipment running backwards. . . even down to the computer read-out, which expresses the power output as a negative number
Canadian Wind Energy Association lobbies for funds to establish wind energy in place of diesel generators
Posted by admin on 28 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Government, Wind
Many remote communities in Canada’s rural countryside rely on noisy, dirty diesel generators for power. With wind in abundance, it would seem like wind turbines would be a natural fit for these communities, but the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) would like the Canadian government to offer incentives to start the process.
Under the CanWEA plan, wind developers or utilities serving large northern communities would get an incentive payment of 3 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by wind. More remote communities would get 15 cents a kwh. About one-third of the money would come as upfront capital grants.
Volvo uses non-oil energy for its factories
Posted by admin on 27 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Hydro, Uncategorized
For the past 25 years, Volvo has been using non-petroleum sources to provide energy for its factories. In 1982, it began using residual heat from refineries to heat a factory in Sweden. Since 1988, natural gas has been used to heat plants in Sweden and Brazil. Now, Volvo uses only hydroelectric power for its plants in Sweden and Belgium.
Mihkel Laks, Volvo’s environmental protection director added: “We have made so much progress that today we are virtually independent of oil for our energy.”
“Although the areas we heat have almost doubled in size over the years we have managed to keep energy consumption constant. In fact, in recent years, we’ve managed to cut energy use through a number of projects and campaigns.”
Cellulosic ethanol plant to open in Illinois
Posted by admin on 26 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Ethanol
An ethanol plant utilizing ethanol-producing enzymes is expected to be completed in Jennings, Illinois by March 31st. The plant will be the first of its kind in the United States.
In February 2007, Verenium broke ground on a 1.4 million gallon-per-year demonstration plant right next to its Jennings pilot site. The company hopes to finish this second plant before April, where Verenium will fine-tune its enzymes, ethanol production and feedstocks (primarily local cane bagasse) before it goes full-scale with a third plant.
Monroe, NY proposal would require all new construction to meet green standards
Posted by admin on 26 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: LEED
Town councillors of Monroe, NY have proposed that all new construction, both residential and commercial, meet green building standards. All new homes would have to be 16% more energy efficient than current code requirements, and all new commercial buildings have to meet LEED standards.
Builders will have to submit a LEED rating checklist and pay a fee of US3 cents per square foot up to US$15,000. The amount paid would be returned if the developer achieves LEED certification, which is based on how well the design and construction of the project can demonstrate energy savings.
If the building fails to achieve certification, the money would go into the town’s general fund.
Nevada looking at building transmission lines to carry “green” energy
Posted by admin on 25 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Geothermal, Government, Solar
After accepting a report which indicates that remote parts of Nevada could be rich in “green” energy, Governor Jim Gibbons opened the door for development which would connect the state’s northern power grid with its southern power grid:
This would allow Southern Nevada to use geothermal energy, which comes from hot underground water found mostly in Northern Nevada, analysts say. Alternatively, Northern Nevada could draw on solar power generated more efficiently in the hot southern end of the state.
