Date: 07/29/2010 | Source: Environmental Leader
Source: Simon-Safety.co.uk
The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has voted in favor of a measure that now requires electric utilities to reduce the amount of power they sell by 22 percent by 2020 as part of its drive to help businesses and homeowners conserve energy, reports The Arizona Republic. Arizona’s measure mirrors a national push by utility companies to increase energy-efficiency efforts as one way to reduce the need for multi-million-dollar power plants and transmission line projects that are financed by customer rate hikes, according to the newspaper. The effort also will help reduce air pollution and excessive water use resulting from power plants burning coal or natural gas to supply customers’ electricity. Click here to read more about this Arizona measure today!
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Date: 07/28/2010
Source: Cooler Planet
The Department of Energy will provide as much as $122 million over five years for advanced solar energy research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A multidisciplinary team of scientists will study what’s known as artificial photosynthesis – methods of generating energy from the sun the same way plants do. Finding a way to emulate plants, deputy energy secretary Daniel Poneman said, “would be a game changer, reducing our dependence on oil and enhancing energy security.” Researchers hope to move solar energy research from the lab to the real world. An integral part of their work – assuming it moves from the theoretical to the practical realm – will be the commercialization of artificial photosynthesis. [Read this article]
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Date: 07/28/2010 | Source: Forbes
Source: Forbes
With Christopher Nolan’s movie Inception now in theaters, star Leonardo DiCaprio discusses how green the production was. “A lot of this movie was made with solar power,” DiCaprio said. “It’s the first movie I got to do with solar power. The generators that we had on the set were all powered by solar energy. It’s going to be a big conversion to do stuff like that every day, not just in making movies but everything in the world.” The generators, which output 600 amps/72,000 watts of “pure sine wave power with no noise, and no emissions,” (according to Pure Power’s website), were used to power the base camp for Inception. Film sets still have a bit to go before solar is part of the mix – but in terms of powering other aspects of the production, renewable energy can be a leading actor now. [Read this article]
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Date: 07/28/2010
Source: Builder Magazine
As too many recent events have proven, the perils of a natural disaster don’t end when the wind dies down or the ground stops shaking. The journey to recovery, particularly in developing regions, is typically long, trying, and expensive. To address the problem of efficiently, safely, and permanently sheltering newly homeless residents, Reose, a sustainable kit-home manufacturer, challenged eight New Orleans-based architecture firms to design Emergency Disaster Relief Housing. Using the same set of materials, each team was tasked with creating a kit house that can be erected quickly, withstand extreme weather conditions, and meet energy and performance guidelines. The homes also must be completely self-sustaining, able to generate their own electricity and collect water. [Read this article]
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Date: 07/28/2010 | Source: Wallet Pop
Source: Wallet Pop
On Earth Day in 1970, months before the Environmental Protection Agency existed, a group of eco-minded students at the University of Colorado at Boulder started something big – and green. More than 40 years later, CU’s Environmental Center has grown to employ more than 100 students, operate a recycling program so large it actually turns a profit, and lead U.S. schools in green campus innovation. It has learned, as other colleges are realizing, that going green goes beyond environmental stewardship – it’s also good business. According to a 2010 Princeton Review survey of 16,000 college applicants and parents, 66% of incoming freshman want to know about a prospective college’s sustainability efforts, and a full 24% say a school’s eco-friendliness “very much” influences their decision to either apply or attend. [Read More]
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Date: 07/26/2010 | Source: New York Times
Source: SustainableKU
The failure of climate legislation in the Senate last week is a blunt reminder of a basic truth, experts say: The nation’s energy policies are historically driven by state and regional interests that will trump national agendas in all but the most compelling circumstances. Without a national consensus on energy policy, the telling political forces come from states, based on how they relate to energy as producers or consumers, says historian and political analyst Bill Schneider. If hurdles increase in front of national climate and energy initiatives in the next few years, as many political observers expect, then regional and state interests are likely to continue shaping policies on renewable energy, electricity transmission, smart grid deployment and nuclear power expansion. Click here to read about how your state could play a big role in shaping energy policy.
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