CleanTechnica

Energy efficiency may not have the glamor of solar power or wind power, but it’s also a critical and immediate solution to cutting pollution.

Today, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced $19.2 million in funding for energy efficiency programs through the San Francisco Energy Watch program and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In the announcement, Newsom highlighted the creation of new local jobs through the programs and outlined the total energy and financial savings from the San Francisco’s energy efficiency work on city buildings during the last 6 years.

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Well, it has been a long time coming, but the US is finally putting some money into high-speed rail (HSR)!

Obama put a strong focus on this in his State of the Union speech last night — “From the first railroads to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains…. Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help our nation move goods, services, and information.”

Now, the White House has just announced the 12 rail lines that will receive billions of dollars for HSR in the very near future. If these HSR projects come to fruition, the US may finally be level with Europe and China.

Will this be the start we need to transform our transportation system in the US?

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You don’t often see affordable housing and solar power being combined. There have been a couple of projects in San Francisco and San Diego in the past year. But Sunwheel Energy Partners just went way beyond that — it just finished a major solar installation on affordable housing units in San Francisco and it hired the residents to install the photovoltaics.

This great project was part of San Francisco’s larger GoSolarSF initiative (launched by San Francisco Mayor and contributing author on CleanTechnica Gavin Newsome).

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People in North Carolina and Virginia must have seen what’s going on in China with high-speed rail and decided they wanted some of that. They are now requesting over $5 billion in funding for high-speed rail.

Actually, as a former resident of both North Carolina and Virginia professionally and personally involved in this topic, I can say they have been working on this topic and wanting better rail for quite a long time.

Now, though, with the federal government pledging $8 billion in stimulus funding for high-speed rail, they may have their chance.

However, they are not the only ones who want this money!

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Bokashi is a centuries-old Japanese method of recycling household food waste into all-natural compost.  By employing a special culture of yeast and other microorganisms, bokashi is a compact, odorless process that takes only days instead of weeks or months. Now the Bokashicycle company is breaking the process out of the kitchen and into a commercial-scale food waste recycling operation, in partnership with New Earth Farm in Hillsboro, Oregon.

New Earth Farm takes in food scraps from Bon Appetit cafeterias on the nearby Intel Hawthorn Farm campus, which provides a significant waste disposal savings compared to disposing the scraps in landfills.  Waste reduction is one goal, and in an even more sustainable twist the composted soil is used to grow crops for Abundant Harvest, a local consumer-supported agriculture (CSA) store.

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Have you ever done the math on commuting to work? Telecommuting saves money, it’s a fact. Yet most folks are fearful of stepping out of the in-person environment. Luckily the barriers have been broken by Adobe as their new Acrobat Connect Pro software has video, audio, and interactivity that create an almost in-person experience for meeting attendees.

In addition, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro online meeting software is now offering a free trial and every time someone signs up they donate twenty-five dollars to help a school go green. In fact, Adobe has partnered with the U.S. Green Building Council and the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco to help schools go green in their communities. Each city will receive up to $100,000 to create classrooms that foster learning alongside smart environmental practices. Read the rest of this entry »

Air travel is a major contributor to climate change. Offsets are a small part of a larger solution.

Today at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) we are launching the Climate Passport program allowing travelers to offset the impact of their air travel through an airport kiosk. This will be the world’s first airport kiosk—giving people the opportunity to calculate the environmental impact of their flights and purchase carbon offsets to address that impact while at the airport. Read the rest of this entry »

In the quest to create new green jobs, we have the opportunity to take existing jobs and make them green.

Every city has architects, engineers and construction divisions. In conventional circumstances the activities these employees undertake can burn considerable natural resources. But in San Francisco, we’re working to turn these traditional municipal positions into environmental champions. Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, we launched our first iPhone app based on a city feed to help San Franciscans recycle 75 percent of the materials that would otherwise go to the landfill by 2010. Today, we are kicking off a new online effort (www.RecyclingMoments.org) to get us over this green goal line and help our city save resources, energy, and reduce pollution.

In San Francisco, we have led the country in creating ambitious yet achievable programs to help residents and businesses decrease the amount of waste going into our landfill. Our modern curbside program began back in the 80s with the crazy idea that people could recycle their newspapers.

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Last July, the City & County of San Francisco launched the first local solar energy incentive program in the nation, The results are in, and, the program is an unequivocal success.

In the year since our solar energy incentive program GoSolarSF launched, we have seen a 450% increase in applications for solar installations in San Francisco over the previous year, from 200 to 850. And despite the current recession, 56 applicants met our low-income standards and will receive incentive payments.

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