Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Sat, Mar 06, 2010
"At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050."
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Mon, Mar 01, 2010
The Center for Resource Solutions or CRS, a non-profit that administers the Green-e program which provides certification and regulatory oversight to the renewable energy industry, launched a year long campaign called Buy Clean Energy 2010.
This campaign will promote renewable electricity purchases among individuals and businesses across United States. I am proud to say that EcoElectrons is one of the sponsoring organizations to this campaign that is focused on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and has the ambitious goal of 1 billion unique kilowatt hours of new purchases made in 2010.
Buy Clean Energy 2010 will utilize its website, www.buycleanenergy.org, to encourage individuals and organizations to buy renewable electricity in support of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. On the website, visitors are given tools to find out how much electricity they use, research local green electricity programs, buy renewable energy credits through a 'Buy Now' button, and share testimonials about why they purchased renewable energy. "Buying clean energy is one of the most important tools consumers and businesses have to reduce the impact of their electricity use," said CRS Executive Director Arthur O'Donnell. "That's why this campaign is so important. No matter what our politics or our perspectives on climate change, we can all agree that building more renewable energy will result in energy security, job creation, fewer emissions, and less pollution. This is the one thing consumers can do now to make a big impact."
The campaign with the tag line, '532 Reasons to Buy Clean Energy. What's yours?', has numerous sponsoring and supporting organizations.
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Mon, Feb 22, 2010
Facebook recently announced plans to build a data center in Oregon. The data center is supposed to be efficient and save on energy and cost. The plan was to use conventional electricity from fossil fuels to power the data center.
Some folks from Greenpeace picked up on this and started a Facebook group petitioning Facebook to purchase renewable electricity for the data center instead of electricity from coal and natural gas. The membership of the group has exploded. About 3,000 members joined the group just today. Purchasing renewable electricity can be as simple as buying renewable energy credits like many of these companies that already do. Tech companies like Intel, Dell and HP are already doing it.
This just goes to show how badly consumers want companies to adopt sustainable initiatives. Facebook will probably have to pay 3-5% more for renewable electricity. Will Facebook listen to its user base and switch to renewables?
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Mon, Feb 15, 2010
You can power a digital clock with a few orange slices. But, have you ever wondered how much of orange electricity or how many orange slices are needed to power the iPhone? Imperial Leisure, a marketing agency, created this iPhone-centric advertisement to raise awareness for Jaffa Oranges.
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Thu, Feb 11, 2010
As a rule of thumb, government intervention into free markets is a bad idea. But it is also true that government help is needed to jumpstart new markets. What do you think? Is it a good idea for government to intervene and set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions? Or should the free market decide what is best since
consumers want companies to adopt sustainable practices anyway?
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Wed, Feb 10, 2010
Walmart Canada is hosting a summit on sustainability, highlighting the very real business case for going green. Over 350 delegates are gathering today at the Pan Pacific in downtown Vancouver, to collaborate across industry sectors, and accelerate the implementation of profitable, environmentally sustainable business practices. Some of these delegates include 3M Canada, HP Canada, Canadian Tire and Coca-Cola Canada.
Walmart
Canada also announced the launch of
ShareGreen.ca, a website to share sustainable business practices across the Canadian business community. The virtual site will give organizations of all sizes access to the successful green business practices of many of Canada's top corporations and organizations. Walmart
Canada views the launch as the first step in building a virtual centre of excellence for sustainable business practices.
Posted by Melia Dicker on Thu, Feb 04, 2010
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aims to help businesses decrease their carbon footprint in many ways. One specialized route that the EPA takes when promoting green businesses is offering Partner Initiatives through the Green Power Partnership.
Partner Initiatives focus on boosting collective green power purchases in specific sectors. The targeted programs offer information on how specific business sectors can decrease their carbon footprints by buying Renewable Energy Credits. Businesses that participate in the Partner Initiatives programs often receive special recognition from the EPA.
Throughout the 2009-2010 school year, the EPA is running the College and University Green Power Challenge. This Partner Initiative divides participating schools into groups by athletic conferences and tracks the schools' green power purchases. The group that buys the most green power within the school year is awarded the title of ‘Champion Green Power Conference.' The initiative also recognizes the top single purchasers within each athletic conference, which gives schools even more reason to participate.
The ABA/EPA Law Firm Climate Challenge is designed to help law offices increase their carbon offset. The Partner Initiative, which is a joint effort of the EPA and the American Bar Association, encourages the offices to participate in the Green Power Partnership by racking up enough green power purchases to meet or exceed the EPA's requirements. The initiative also encourages the participants to adopt green business practices such as reducing paper use, increasing recycling efforts and instituting energy-management plans to reduce total use of electricity.
Partner Initiatives programs are a great way to get targeted advice about building and maintaining a greener business. Some programs, such as the College and University Green Power Challenge, are ongoing. New initiatives are also introduced periodically, so keep an eye on the EPA's Partner Initiatives Web site to learn about fresh opportunities.
Posted by Melia Dicker on Mon, Feb 01, 2010
For years, companies across the United States have missed out on opportunities to cut operating costs by reducing their carbon footprint and increasing their use of alternative energy. Climate Corps has set out to meet that challenge by helping firms revitalize and green their business strategies.
Climate Corps, which is run by the Environmental Defense Fund in conjunction with partner Net Impact, harnesses the energy of young people to make a difference. The national program dispatches trained MBA students from top business schools to corporate clients. The student interns spend several months poring over the host companies' operations and helping them implement green business strategies. Among other things, the interns look out for inefficiencies related to space utilization, heating and cooling systems, lighting and computer equipment.
The program isn't just for businesses that are lagging in the green sector. One of Climate Corps' newest host companies, Target Corporation, already focuses on building energy-efficient stores and implementing energy-savings programs. The Climate Corps intern will help Target to fine-tune its devotion to green business by developing innovative alternative energy projects.
Participating in the Climate Corps program can bring more than an environmentally friendly outlook to a company. Corporations also reap big savings. For example, when working with networking equipment firm Cisco last summer, interns Emily Reyna and Sarah Shapiro implemented changes in the way energy use is managed in the firm's data labs. Once it is put in place throughout the country, the plan will cut Cisco's energy costs by $8 million annually while also reducing the company's carbon footprint by 3 percent.
By guiding companies toward their goal of energy efficiency, Climate Corps is helping green strategies assume a greater priority in the business world.
While energy efficiency is the right thing to do, it is only a small part of the solution.
As Bill Gates says on his website, Gates Notes, we need innovation and not just conservation. Innovation meaning bringing the emissions from transportation and electricity generation down to zero.
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Wed, Jan 27, 2010
The organizers of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are on a quest to host the first carbon-neutral Olympics, and they're asking spectators to kick in for the cause.
Vancouver 2010 is encouraging tourists traveling to the Olympic Games to purchase carbon offsets that fund sustainability projects. These credits help to eliminate the carbon footprint left by carbon dioxide that's produced when people drive or fly long distances. The organization estimates that spectators will be responsible for generating almost half of the carbon footprint left by the games.
Vancouver 2010 is partnering with Offsetters, a British Columbia, Canada-based carbon asset management company. The firm connects individuals and businesses with specific carbon-offset projects to which they can contribute. The Olympics organizers are directing all spectators to the Offsetters website at www.offsetters.ca to determine their carbon footprint and contribute accordingly.
The site features an offset calculator that allows travelers to select their departure city and destination, as well as whether they are flying or driving. The site then calculates the total trip emissions in metric tonnes, with a suggested cost of at least $20 per tonne of emissions. Offsetters also allows the travelers to select a specific project portfolio to choose from, with a mix of locally developed projects, international Voluntary Carbon Standard credits and Gold Standard credits.
The Games organizers have already made arrangements to offset direct carbon emissions for the Olympics, including those generated by venue construction and athletes' travel from around the world. Vancouver 2010 has also taken other steps to reduce harmful emissions by choosing strategic venue sites, approaching energy management with an emphasis on renewable resources, and pushing use of the city's expanded public transit system during the Games.
Photo via Miss Barabanov
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Sun, Jan 24, 2010
Golden State Warriors have installed solar panels to power the team's practice facility. The solar panels would produce about 26% of the facility's annual electricity requirements. It is said that the facility will save $2 Million over the next 25 years. Perhaps it is assumed that the cost electricity will rise year over year because the annual savings are said to be just $36,000. More info can be found at
Cooler Planet.
I don't think the $36,000 of annual savings take into account the actual cost of the solar system and its installation because the payback on solar systems are at the very least 5-10 years or more.
What else can a business/corporation/building do to reduce the impact of its electricity usage? Watch the video of US Environmental Protection Agency's
Green Power Partnership Video or visit their
website. Greening one's electricity can have far reaching consequences -
more so than recycling.
There are three ways for a facility to run on green power:
a) Install an on-site system like the Golden State Warrirors. This is an excellent option if you can afford it. However, on-site solar and wind installations can be very expensive and can only generate a percentage of the electricity needed for a facility.
b) Sign-up for a green power program being offered by a local utility company. Such programs are cheaper than installing an on-site system.
c) Purchase
Renewable Energy Credits from an independent certified provider. Electricity is like a tub of water with dirty water (dirty electricity) and clean water (clean electricity) flowing in from each end and the mixture of the two flowing out the other. This makes it impossible for the purchaser of clean water (clean electricity or green power) to consume just the clean water (clean or green electrons). Therefore, it is sufficient if the clean water (clean or green electrons) is injected on your behalf. Renewable Energy Credits are proof that 1 Mega-Watt of electricity was injected into the electric grid on behalf of the purchaser. Plus going through an independent provider can be even cheaper than a local electric utility (Shameless promotion alert). Want to find out how much the cost of green power through renewable energy credits?
Contact us today.