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POPSHow Parking Lots Can Beat the Heat & Gain Energy On hot, sunny days when air conditioners threaten to overload the power grid, solar power generation makes a lot of sense. Parking lots in asphalt-rich cities have great solar potential because the panels can be oriented to optimize power production during summer afternoons when electricity is most valuable. Google, for example, has installed solar canopies on its parking lots to satisfy 30 percent of its headquarters' power demand. Because the parking lots for most commercial buildings are bigger than the buildings themselves, economies of scale for large installations can further reduce the cost of the solar panels. We shouldn't wait until the next heat wave to think about getting solar power from our parking lots.
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POPS12 Ways to Build with a Smaller Carbon Footprint Buildings consume 76% of electricity generated & they create 48% of our greenhouse gases. Main Points: * Every brick in building required the burning of fossil fuel in its manufacture, every piece of lumber was cut and transported using energy * Aim for a complete ban of formaldehyde use in building products * Building demolitions account for 48% of the waste stream (65 million tons a year), renovations account for 44% and renovations account for 8% * A solar water heater can save $ 450 a year and keep a ton of CO2 emissions out of the air; multiply that by 80 million houses in the USA * While smaller is better almost every city has minimum floor area requirements * The losses are higher in AC than in DC because it grounds so easily * The average 1950’s house was 983 sq feet; by 1970 it was 1500 SF; last year it was 2350 SF * We can no longer afford to lose agricultural land close to our cities and towns
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POPSOklahoma: Home To The World's Largest Switchgrass For Energy Field Oklahoma has made an aggressive establishment of 1,000 acres of switchgrass: the first of its size anywhere in the world focused on biomass production. The fields also will serve as a "living classroom" where agricultural producers, policymakers and the general public can see and experience these crops, which will play a key role in the United States' energy future. A unique "living laboratory" to understand the production and long-term impact of bio-energy crops, as well as experiment with new production techniques and critical harvest, collection and transport methods. This dedicated land will allow us to demonstrate the advantages of switchgrass. A cellulosic bio-refinery currently being constructed by in Hugoton, Kansas (less than 35 miles from the fields) to process the switchgrass into bio-fuel. “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain, and the wavin' switchgrass can sure smell sweet…”
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POPSPut On Your Thinking Cap: Scotland Offers $20 Million For New Innovation
Scotland can shine a spotlight on the critical work taking place in clean energy. Even more importantly, in the tradition of world-changing innovation prizes, Scotland can challenge scientists and businesses around the world to tackle one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century in bringing the vast potential of alternative energy online years sooner than might otherwise happen. The key elements of the Saltire Prize are: * capturing imaginations: challenge that can inspire a revolution in green energy * global challenge: high profile prize open to teams from across the world * relevant to Scotland: relevant to area in which Scotland has strong natural resource and can be demonstrated in Scotland * capitalises on Scotland's expertise: challenge will reflect area in which Scotland has strong technical expertise and people already working * achievable in the short-medium term: challenge ideally achievable within a 2-5 year timeframe
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POPSSpain's New Record: Wind Power Supplied 40% of Energy Consumed Wind Power Is an Economic Winner in Spain: Spain is the world's second-biggest producer of wind energy. Spanish companies, both turbine manufacturers and wind-farm operators, are among the leaders in the global wind-power market. Among these are Gamesa Eólica (world's second largest turbine manufacturer), Iberdrola (world's largest wind-farm owner and operator) and Acciona Energía (world's largest wind-farm builder and developer). The industry currently enjoys a 30 percent annual growth.
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POPSRuslana's Wild Energy: Singing Ukraine Into An Energy Revolution Ruslana is Ukraine's biggest pop star: her new album "Wild Energy" represents the energy of the sun, the energy of the wind, the energy of water…. renewable energy and energy independence. Ukraine is among the most energy-intensive countries in the world, but most of their energy comes from Russia. Ruslana is a Ukrainian nationalist, one of the protesters in 2004, during the Orange Revolution. She had a seat in the Ukrainian parliament. Now she's trying to reduce Ukraine's dependence on natural gas imported from Russia. She does not sing about carbon footprints and gas prices; she sings about the wild energy of love. It triumphs over a synthetic world, dependent on synthetic energy. In the video: that world is represented by a pale, metallic-looking woman who gets her strength from a giant machine…. Ruslana's depiction of a woman dependent on fossil fuels for energy. If Ukraine can embrace renewable energy they could break free from their dependence on natural gas…and Russia
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POPSPorridge: A Good Source of Energy For Your Body & Your Factory A FIFE factory is to become one of Scotland’s greenest when it begins generating all its own energy from oat husks. Quaker, which produces Scott’s Porage Oats at its Uthrogle Mills plant near Cupar, is to invest £6 million in a combined heat and power biomass boiler which will make it carbon neutral. The husks, removed from the oats during the milling process, will provide 9,709 MWhrs of electricity and 10,902 MWhrs of steam a year, reducing its emissions by 9,000 tonnes a year. “This innovative approach by Quaker to cut carbon emissions through investment in new low carbon technology will be a powerful signal to other businesses that reducing carbon emissions and looking for sustainable energy sources makes business sense.”
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POPSBeyond Zero-Energy: The World's 1st Positive Energy Building Generates more energy than it consumes. The building’s aggressive approach to sustainability enables it to offer the lowest energy consumption per square meter for its class. The complex will utilize sustainable materials and feature integrated wind turbines, outdoor air quality monitors. In addition to serving as the Masdar headquarters, the building will accommodate private residences and ‘early bird’ businesses starting up in the city. The Masdar development will be constructed over seven phases and is due to be completed by 2016.
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POPSUSA Solar Capital: Arizona to Build World's Largest Solar Plant To provide more solar capacity per customer than any utility in the United States - using molten salt to store heat and continue generating electricity for as long as six hours after the sun sets. The premium is worth it because coal and natural-gas prices are unpredictable, and emissions from those plants likely someday will be taxed for their contributions to global climate change: That makes predictable solar prices attractive. Abengoa Solar Inc., a Spanish technology company that has several smaller solar-thermal projects in Spain, North Africa and the United States, will build and run the Solana Generating Station. Its current U.S. installations use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and heat water for prisons in Arizona, Colorado and California, a military base in Texas, and one scheduled to come online this year for a California Frito-Lay chip factory.
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POPSA Green Utopia: World's First Zero-Carbon & Zero-Waste City Abu Dhabi: Masdar City aims to be the world's greenest city....and the most sustainable city. The Masdar development is a 6 km sq, car-free “walled-city” scheme. A challenging design that promises to question conventional urban wisdom at a fundamental level. Masdar promises to set new benchmarks for the sustainable city of the future
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POPSSalt: The Key to Successful Solar Power SolarReserve will be able to produce electricity at night or in inclement weather. This product is more predictable than water reserves, the supply is free and inexhaustible, and the environmental impact is essentially zero.
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POPSEco-Equity? Green Jobs Act Passed: Part of 2007 Energy Bill The Green Jobs Act is a crucial building block of the clean energy future. The Act creates a pilot program to train workers in the new skills required for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, and will help to alleviate the skills shortage that impairs growth of the clean energy sector. By requiring business and labor to work together in developing training programs, it ensures the high-quality training needed for high-wage jobs in this new growth sector. The Act also specifically funds training for low-income workers, providing a pathway out of poverty into emerging “green collar” jobs, helping to ensure that everyone has a chance to help our country build the new energy future.
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POPS7 Eco-Resolutions for 2008: I Will Try To Live Green Do you really need berries from Chile? Don't collect stuff you will never use. If you trash those once-new goodies when you’re no longer interested in them, they will live in a landfill for years and years. Cut the power to your electronics by plugging them in to a power strip and flipping the switch to off when you’re not watching or listening. Public transportation use saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline each year, and can reduce household expenses by $6,200. Plastic bags are made from petroleum and only about 1 percent of the estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion Annie Bell plastic bags consumed worldwide are recycled each year. Most end up in landfills (wherethey take perhaps 1000 years to decompose) or in the sea. By purchasing recycled paper products you’re preventing trees from being chopped down, and paper waste from ending up in landfills. In addition, less energy and water is required to produce a recycled paper product.
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POPSDisaster Gives Birth to Greenest Town in America To leverage environmentalism to rebuild and sustain itself in the wake of near total destruction, it just may unwittingly be writing a modern survival guide for rural America. Currently, the town has completed town houses for working class families that are LEED gold certified. Gold certification means these places will be almost twice as efficient as they used to be. A lot of what's happening in Greensburg is some of the first in the country.
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