Ontario’s got a new feed-in tariff, and the largest supermarket chain in Canada, Loblaw, is looking to take advantage of it.
It will be putting solar panels on the roofs of four of its supermarkets to start with, but plans to eventually do so on over 100 of its Ontario stores (if all goes well).
In a letter to U.S. Senators last week signed by more than 90 state legislators, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) challenged the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. That was no surprise. ALEC is the same lobbying group behind legislative resolutions popping up in at least 15 states that also challenge the EPA, some of which include language asserting that climate science is a vast global conspiracy.
The money quote in ALEC’s letter (pdf) is this: “America’s economic recovery depends on affordable energy to sustain growth and reemploy workers.” Since ALEC is partly funded by Exxon, Amoco, Chevron, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute and Texaco among others, one might safely assume that what they really mean is: cheap fossil fuel will pull us out of this slump. Er…unless ALEC doesn’t care where the energy comes from, as long as it’s affordable…am I missing something?
High-Speed Rail (HSR) attracts a lot of positive attention because of its speed, of course. But is this speed only about saving time and having fun? No.
It is about expanding economic competitiveness and improving social cohesion as well.
Research from Europe shows that we can praise HSR for doing just these things,.. there, at least. But how does this research transfer to the US situation.
US solar energy company SunEdison has announced final plans to build the largest photovoltaic (PV) power plant in the world,.. in Italy.
SunEdison’s new solar PV farm will be a 72MW farm in the northern Italian province of Veneto near the town of Rovigo. It has just received final approval from the Italian government and the farm is expected to be finished and in use before the end of the year (with power generation starting in the second half of 2010).
The PV farm will pass up 60MW Olmedilla Photovoltaic Park in Olmedilla, Spain to take the world title. However, China is close on its heels with a mega-project that would make this “farm” look like a small “potted plant”.
In the search for a high efficiency algae biofuel, a team of researchers lead by Texas A&M University has been delving into the inner workings of the Botryococcus braunii green algae, and they have discovered a direct connection between the algae and deposits of petroleum and coal. The discovery is significant because it could lead to the development of new strains of algae that produce the highest yield of biofuel compared to the amount of space needed to raise them.
Biofuel from algae and other plants is on the verge of mainstreaming as a form of renewable energy, but in terms of long term sustainability one sticking point has been the amount of land needed to raise biofuel crops. Texas A&M’s finding raises the possibility of creating a viable platform for small-scale algae biofuel farming on brownfields and other underused land, or even in (or on top of) reclaimed buildings — which in turn would help create another opportunity to invest in green jobs.
The Economist is running a 6-day poll on whether or not governments should support and try to create green jobs. It pits Van Jones (see: Van Jones is Back; NAACP: Van Jones is an American Treasure; Van Jones rejoins American Progress to lead Green Opportunity initiative; Van Jones: “Will all Americans have a fair shot at America’s fair share?”) as a proponent of green jobs against Andrew P. Morriss who thinks the federal government should not be so involved in stimulating green jobs or proactively engaging in a clean energy future.
The main quote for Van Jones: “In a world of precarious energy supplies, mounting climate concerns and a global race for clean-energy jobs, Andy Morriss suggests that Americans should sit back and leave our energy security solely to the magic of the marketplace.”
California has taken strong action to promote or require renewable energy. It is the national leader on this front. Currently, it’s renewable energy standard is 33% by 2020.
However, with the passage of new legislation in Colorado, Colorado is now nipping close at its heels.
Starting at an amusement park in South Korea, but perhaps expanding much further in the future, a new type of large electric vehicle magnetically pulls power out of buried electrical strips under the road (or “recharging roads”).
This online electric vehicle (OLEV) may be “one of the most significant technical gains in the 21st century” according to its creators at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
The vehicle was launched at Seoul Grand Park in southern Seoul this week. If all goes well, it will soon be tried out on a bus route in Seoul as well. After that, who knows?
Given the state of the economy you’d think they’d be pinching every penny but it appears that the State of Arizona has money to burn – perhaps literally. Last week the House voted in favor of a bill that would use old tires to fill abandoned mines. The bill’s supporters cite the growing problem of used tire dumps, but apparently they don’t keep up with the latest business news. Magnum D’Or and InfoSpi are just two of the rapidly growing number of companies that see the potential for recycling those tire dumps into real money – and creating more green jobs to boot.
Squandering an opportunity to make money is bad enough, but the Arizona bill does something much worse. Tires burn, right? Doesn’t everybody know that? Tire fires are hard enough to put out when they’re in open dumps. The idea of stuffing millions of tires into abandoned mines sounds a little less than common sensical… that is, if you know anything about underground mine fires…
At the Wall Street Journal’s recent ECO:nomics conference, the “only CEO-level event focused on the relationship between the environment and the bottom line,” the CEOs of some major energy companies expressed their impatience at the US’ slow and unclear movement to take action on climate change and clean energy.
Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Peter Voser said that the industry needs “certainty on the carbon price, certainty on legislation.” Shell is a member of the US Climate Action Partnership.
American Electric Power chairman Michael Morris, regarding climate change and clean energy legislation, said, “We need this done. America needs to lead the world [in clean technologies].”
And FPL Group chief executive Lew Hay reiterated, “We need some certainty about the economics.”
These top CEOs are getting impatient, and there is no question why. The bottom line is, if the US is going to lead the global economy (or even be a significant player in it), it needs to get cracking on clean energy legislation.
In a similar manner, the question the Center for American Progress (CAP) recently decided to pose is this: “Is the US already out of the clean energy race?”. They have just released a report on this topic.
CleanTechnica
Since February 2008, CleanTechnica.com has provided news and information about the future of clean energy technology.
CleanTechnica is a One Block Off the Grid Production.
Some Rights Reserved
