Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chad Maglauque, Google, Jellyfish Wind, news, Project 10^100, renewable energy, wind
The American innovation machine is at work, thanks in part the Google’s Project 10100, “a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.” After receiving more than 100,000 responses, Google will narrow the submissions down to 100 semi-finalists on March 17. Ideas were submitted to in the following categories: Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, Shelter, and Everything Else.
The remaining 100 ideas will be narrowed down, by a public vote, to twenty semi-finalists. Finally, an advisory board will choose five winners, who will have their ideas funded by Google. Google has set aside up to $10 million to implement these projects.
We pass along one of the many submissions here, from a new friend in Seattle. Chad Maglauque decided that people should be able to bring renewable energy, cheaply and conveniently into their homes. So he invented the Jellyfish Wind Appliance that plugs into any American electrical outlet, and is quiet, safe and easy to install. I don’t meant to sound like I am peddling for this product (or rather, this idea), but I love the ingenuity and the ease that average people could power their homes.
According the product information on its website, the Jellyfish can generate up to 40kWh per month, which is enough to power the average home that uses energy efficient light bulbs. The company expects to introduce this product at around $400, but through economies-of-scale hopes to reduce that retail price to $200.
I hope you will join me in supporting this idea if it makes it through to the final 100 semifinalists of Project 10100. Set up a reminder for yourself to vote on this and all of the ideas on March 17th here.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: china, geothermal, india, news, phillipines, renewable energy, solar, wind, wired science
Wired Science ran a nice little feature on some major renewable energy projects that are taking hold outside of the US. The five projects illustrated will produce more than 4.4 gigawatts from geothermal, wind and solar sources. All this shows is that some surprising markets (India and China) are making headway on this issue. By no means is there any implication that this is more than a step forward in the right direction. I love seeing acres of wind turbines and solar panels. Here is the full text of the article:
Any solution to global climate change will eventually have to involve the whole globe, not just the richest countries.
That’s why deals like the one announced Tuesday between Pasadena’s eSolar and the Indian conglomerate Acme Group are essential to any truly green global future. ESolar will sell Acme 1,000 megawatts worth of solar thermal technology, so that the latter can build a network of solar power plants in India’s northern state of Haryana.
“India is an enormous electricity market with enormous demand for growth,” said Rob Rogan, vice president of corporate communications for eSolar. “We see this as our chance to be part of a long-term renewable energy solution in India.”
To date, most wind and solar power has been deployed in the rich, industrialized nations. A 2008 report found that the world’s developed countries had installed 207 gigawatts of renewable-power generation, excluding large hydro. That’s only a few percent of the rich countries’ power generation, but it’s a lot more than the 88 gigawatts of clean power that had been built in the developing world.
Now, even with the Obama-led United States looking increasingly green-friendly, that trend could reverse. Falling renewable-energy costs and the desire to use domestic energy sources have helped green tech make inroads in fast-growing countries. Renewable-energy investments jumped 91 percent in 2007 in China. and India expects add 6 gigawatts of wind power between 2007 and 2012.
Here we present five of the largest green tech projects that have broken ground, or plan to, in 2009. Each one of them is slated to be among the largest green-tech projects in the world. Though each is as big as a large coal plant, your average fossil fuel plant will generate more kilowatt-hours because they can burn round the clock every day the year, not just when the sun is shining or the wind blowing.
(It’s difficult to find out the exact number and size of solar, wind and geothermal projects in the developing world: The English-language paper trail is disappointingly thin. If you know about other projects or initiatives that are planned or complete, let us know in the Comments section, so we can add them.)
Leyte Geothermal Field
Location: Leyte, Philippines
Current capacity: 708.5 megawatts
Planned capacity: 708.5 megawatts
The jumble of tectonic plates underneath the Philippines has created the perfect situation for tapping geothermal power, particularly at the five-plant array of sites near Leyte. Geothermal development has gone so well that a major energy producer swore off coal in January of this year, choosing to buy into the government-run geothermal company, Energy Development Corporation, instead.Geothermal power has already had marked success in the developing world, as can be seen in the chart. That’s because, when the geological conditions are right, geothermal can be downright cheap.
Suzlon Wind Farm
Location: Near Dhule, India
Current capacity: 650 megawatts
Planned capacity: 1,000 megawatts
Estimated completion date: 2010
Built by Suzlon, a homegrown Indian energy compay, the Suzlon wind farm near Dhule will be the world’s largest when it’s completed in 2010. Already, it’s creeping up on Florida Light and Power’s Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, which has a capacity of 735 megawatts. It’s the brainchild of Tulsi Tanti, Suzlon’s founder and something of an international hero — but not everyone is happy about Tanti’s low-cost approach to wind-farm development. Der Spiegel reported that the farmers who toil under the giant turbines are demanding more money for their land. “If Suzlon refuses to pay, the farmers block the access routes with their buffaloes,” the magazine wrote.
Acme Solar Thermal Plants
Location: Haryana, India
Current capacity: 0 megawatts
Planned capacity: 1,000 megawatts
Estimated completion date: 2019
Acme, an Indian technology conglomerate, announced its intentions to build up to 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal power Tuesday. The company providing the technology, eSolar, makes 46-megawatt modular power plants that concentrate the sun’s rays onto a central boiler to generate steam to drive a turbine. ESolar’s Rob Rogan said that the companies would break ground on the first 100 megawatts of solar power within the year.Qaidam Basin Solar PV Installaton
Location: Qinghai Province, China
Current capacity: 0 megawatts
Planned capacity: 1,000 megawatts
Estimated completion date: ?
Two local Chinese firms announced their intentions to install up to 1,000 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels in northwestern China in January. The China Technology Development Group Corporation and Qinghai New Energy Company will start with a more modest 30 megawatts. They expect to break ground during 2009.Econcern Wind Farms
Location: ?
Current capacity: 0 megawatts
Planned capacity: 720 megawatts
Estimated completion date: ?
The Dutch energy company Econcern will partner with a major Chinese oil firm and a hydroelectric company to build four wind farms that will generate around 720 megawatts of power. Work is expected to begin this year, but Econcern’s CEO recently admitted that the clean-energy industry faces a serious slowdown that could cause his company to cut jobs.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ClimateBiz, grant money, Green Mountain Coffee, news, solar, Times Argus, Vermont
Up in Waterbury, VT, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. is making headlines for two initiatives this week. First, the company is soliciting offers from non-profit organizations to distribute a total of $800,000 in grants this year.
According to ClimateBiz, “The Vermont-based company will award four nonprofits $200,000 in grants each for their work battling climate change in one of four areas: transportation, building political will, individual empowerment and threats to coffee-growing communities.” The program will be spread over a five-year period. The selection process is open to the public and available online at JustMeans.com.
Secondly, the coffee-roaster is adding solar panels to the roof of its Waterbury, VT distribution facility. Summarized from the Times Argus, the 500 panels will contribute a small percentage to the overall consumption of the facility. Green Mountain Energy has agreed to purchase any excess power at a premium rate and the project is expected to be cash-positive after one year, thanks in part to state grants and tax credits.
Green Mountain Coffee is “hoping to show other organizations in the area on how to structure renewable energy projects.”
This is great and not too surprising to see from a Vermont-based company. Anyone have any good examples of this from Pittsburgh area?
Filed under: current events | Tags: Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Boone Pickens, Harry Reid, NCEP, news, smart grid, Stephen Chu, Thomas Friedman, Unified National Smart Grid
The National Clean Energy Project Summit that took place on Monday was a refreshing and insightful look at the nation’s leading clean energy policy makers. The forum discussed the modernization and unification of the electrical grid, the development and feasibility of alternative fuels, the integration of energy efficiency, and the means necessary to trigger American capitalism and innovation to generate a green economy. A summary of the summit was covered by KnoxViews and the Center for American Progress.
The consensus around two key points were particularly interesting: 1) we need a smart grid, currently being labeled the “Unified National Smart Grid”, so consumers and businesses can buy and sell energy into a national system; and 2) we need to change the market incentives to trigger investment. The latter echos a significant point from Thomas Friedman’s latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, that basically states by leveraging the nation’s strength in innovation, we will spark a new green economy. This is only feasible when the market has the right rules and incentives in place. In addition to this discussion, Obama’s budget proposal gives us a good feeling that we are heading in the right direction.
Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:
“A fool with plan always beats a genius with no plan.” – T. Boone Pickens. (In other words, the conversation today is great, and I love the energy, but we need to actually put a plan down on paper and get started.)
“If you’re not in the government, your job is to prove that this can work – at the local level.”- Bill Clinton. (Simply meaning, if you are not on the payroll to right laws, then you need to use what you have already and get to work to prove that these ideas are right and feasible. To people like me, it really is at the local level.)
If you have the time, check out the videos from the summit:
NCEP Summit Part 1:
NCEP Summit Part 2:
NCEP Summit Part 3:
Filed under: current events | Tags: economy, graphic, krugman, news, pjchmiel, stimulus package
Keeping up on the latest economic news, I hope that we are making wise investments in the economy. I tend to agree with the group that Paul Krugman is in that believes the problem with the stimulus package is that it is not big enough. The government is staving off the worst with this spending but not necessarily sparking enough sustainable growth to carry us out of recession. That’s about all I wanted to say about the stimulus. Rather than making this post about regurgitated and redundant opinion fodder, I am passing along an interesting graphic posted on pjchmiel.com,
How many of the letters do you think are represented in the stimulus?
Filed under: smart urbanism | Tags: bioneers, conference, event 2009, PASU, smart urbanism, speakers, urban forest
The Pittsburgh Advocates for Smart Urbanism (PASU) held its second meeting last night, welcoming the Friends of the Urban Forest. PASU is organized by myself and LV focusing on smart urbanism ideas and educating its members about the local community. The group’s meetings are a deconstructed version of the idea for our event later this year. We plan to welcome a different group each month to present their ideas, activities, and knowledge about Pittsburgh to our members.
Last night we had about 10-15 people turn out for the event at New Amsterdam in Lawrenceville. Friends works with the city to plan, plant, care, and advocate for city neighborhood trees. We learned that despite having a very healthy number of trees across the city, Pittsburgh’s trees are concentrated too heavily in its parks causing the city to actually fall below the national average for street trees. This is measured by calculating the ratio of street trees per capita. In Pittsburgh’s case that ratio is 1:11, whereas the national average for US cities is 1:3. A city study released last year, STRATUM (see page 15), estimated that Pittsburgh would need to plant an additional 90,000 trees to reach this benchmark.
We also heard from Molly, who is a Lawrenceville Tree Tender. Friends offers a Tree Tender training program throughout the year to learn how to plant and care for young trees. Molly, who has been tending trees for eight years, shared her experiences with us. She is part a Tree Tenders group, who plan regular weekend events to clean up and tend local trees for businesses and residents of Lawrenceville. The impact of the presentations was that we all realized how important trees are to a thriving neighborhood.
Following the presentation, we launched the event idea to the group. I was hoping to find a couple people who were (a) willing to volunteer time with me to get this planned and executed, and (b) experienced and skilled in planning large events. There was some good and bad news to come of my announcement. First of all, the good news is that the idea was received well by the group and I even got a few people to sign up to help me out (most notably, a very experienced event planner and good friend of LV).
However, the bad news is that we realized that another event idea is gaining momentum for 2009 in Pittsburgh and comes from a much bigger organization. The good news is that this organization happens to be Bioneers. There is a group in the city trying to get the Bioneers to host a satellite conference in Pittsburgh this year. We hope the PASU can collaborate with this group. We will be following up on this in the coming days by attending a meeting on Monday with our new friends at Friends. Being a host for part of the Bioneers conference would be a huge boost to the local movement in Pittsburgh and give the community a chance to come together around some common goals just as our original event idea intends to do.
Filed under: current events | Tags: bill peduto, City Council, LED, news, NYTimes, pittsburgh, Post-Gazette
Yesterday, the city council met to discuss the proposal to convert the city’s lighting to LED. Here is Rich Lord’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, City Council debates options for energy-saving street lights:
Electricity-saving, environment-improving street lights may be coming to Pittsburgh, if city officials can agree on how to pick a vendor.
A special City Council meeting on lighting yesterday attracted representatives of at least nine companies, one foundation, one university, and daylight-challenged Anchorage, Alaska. Pretty much everyone agreed that the city could save upwards of $1.4 million a year in energy and maintenance costs, and look nicer, if it replaces its 40,000 street lights with light-emitting diode (LED) lights, or some other high-efficiency system.
The question is how.
Councilman William Peduto, who called the meeting, has legislation before council that would tell Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to start converting the street lights to more efficient light-emitting diode technology.
“This is much more than changing light bulbs,” Mr. Peduto said. “This is about urban lighting for the 21st century.”
He wants Pittsburgh to be among the first North American cities to go LED, and to set up a competitive process to evaluate different products in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University and the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Mr. Ravenstahl’s administration already has an internal street light committee, said Sustainability Coordinator Lindsay Baxter. Next month it expects to invite firms to submit ideas for a pilot transformation of some portion of the city’s street light system to one of several available technologies, including LED. And it is working with the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Engineering, rather than Carnegie Mellon.
“I am not 100 percent sold on LEDs yet,” said Ms. Baxter. The pilot project could answer questions like whether heat-sensitive LEDs function well in the summer.
LEDs direct their beam more precisely, produce less heat, draw less than half the energy of conventional lamps, and can go decades without maintenance.
Public Works Director Guy Costa said the city spends around $4 million a year powering and maintaining its lights, and figured the city could shave $1.4 million from that total. Mr. Peduto estimated greater savings.
Anchorage LED Project Leader Michael Barber, joining the meeting by speakerphone, said his city spent $2.2 million on the lights and cut its energy bills by $350,000 a year, so the project will pay for itself in six years.
LEDs can have features like sensor-and-timer-controlled dimmers and programmable color changes. Luis Rico Gutierrez, director of Carnegie Mellon’s Remaking Cities Institute, called them “the next era, the next phase,” in public lighting, following the wooden torch, whale oil or gas lamp, and light bulb eras.
The four council members who attended seemed sold on the concept.
“I’d like us to be the city of lights,” said Councilwoman Darlene Harris, arguing that effective, creative lighting could turn the city into “a work of art.”
The question is how to competitively bid the work, which Mr. Peduto estimated would involve a $25 million contract. The city would probably borrow the money, and pay off the debt using the resulting savings.
The administration is testing LED lights at the corner of Grant Street and Fourth Avenue, and considering them for a state-funded project to replace Grandview Avenue’s 85 outmoded street lamps. But it hasn’t ruled out other efficient technologies, like induction lighting or metal halide lighting.
Mr. Peduto said he’s “so convinced that LED is the optimal choice.”
“We just want to make sure that the process is based on research and is open and transparent,” said Ms. Baxter.
What grabs my attention most about this is not the environmental, energy or cost-saving aspects, which I agree with and believe are in the best interest of our city. Rather, it is the potential publicity that would result for Pittsburgh on a national level. The old perceptions of Pittsburgh remain strong across our country. David Streitfeld’s profile for the NYTimes recently highlighted the progress that Pittsburgh has made that many people likely fail to realize. We are about more than just black and gold.
With the implementation of the LED project, Pittsburgh would the first North American city to move forward on a project of this scale. Pittsburgh would a national example for other cities on this front and eventually sought out for advice on implementation by other cities. The nation would turn its attention for a moment to us for something other than our recent Superbowl victory. Although it is only replacing a few thousand bulbs, it could actually be turning on the lights to a brighter, greener future for Pittsburgh.
Filed under: smart urbanism | Tags: PASU, smart urbanism, speakers, urban forest
My wife and I returned on Saturday night to warmer weather in Pittsburgh than expected, but also to a dead car battery. We had parked in the extended lot out at the airport, but somehow the trunk did not get latched correctly, drawing all the energy out the battery. In case anyone ends up in this scenario, check in with the airport shuttle service. Someone will be at your car within a few minutes to give you a jump. We were so relieved for that free service for saving us from some hassle after an exhausting 24 hours of travel.
The trip completely rocked. We were sad to leave Phuket and probably could have stayed for another week, if not a month. However, I am ready to get moving on the planning and execution for the green festival later this year. LV and I are reconnecting later this week at the second meeting of the renamed and relaunched, Pittsburgh Advocates for Smart Urbanism (formerly New Urbanism and Sustainability). You’ll see from the link that we are migrating our group to facebook, where we believe we will have better reach, communication and it’s free.
This meeting, the second of our Monthly Speakers Series, features Danielle and Molly from the Friends of the Urban Forest. They will talk to us about the organization, what forestry means to all of us in an urban environment, and how we can get involved. You can find all the info at the link to the event above. Feel free to join the group or just join us on Thursday if you are interested in Friends of the Urban Forest.
Getting back the event planning, I hope to spend some time discussing short term objectives with LV on Thursday night.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posts will be on hold for the next couple of weeks while I am on vacation. There will not be any action to report on for the event anyhow. LV and I are still strongly united on the idea. I am so excited to be going on vacation, but am also anxious to come back to get started on the event. We need to start getting other people on board with the idea to create some energy for it.
By the way, my vacation is to Bangkok and Phuket, Thailand with my wife. We are heading off on a delayed honeymoon from our wedding this past June. I can’t wait to step foot on that plane and get out there.
