Posted by Kelly Smith on Wed, Aug 18, 2010
Most green electricity costs just a couple of cents more per kilowatt hour to produce than traditional energy, according to many sources. One advantage that green power has over fossil-fuel based energy sources is that most renewable sources are not subject to fluctuating fuel prices. It does not actually cost any money to get energy from the sun, the water, or the wind. The money is spent investing in the technology and infrastructure necessary to harness that energy efficiently and distribute it to power customers.
Some people are resistant to a switch to green power, because it involves a large investment up front, and we already have the existing infrastructure to produce energy in a conventional manner. However, many people are starting to see that the investment in green power is the investment in a premium product, the energy of the future. Climate change, oil spills, and coal mining disasters continue to remind us that the old way is not always the best way.
Some governments around the world are encouraging green power country-wide. In other places, it is up to people to choose for themselves. Individuals and businesses can easily purchase green power in a variety of ways. In the U.S, some utility companies offer the option of investing in more renewable energy sources. Power customers around the U.S. pay upwards of 0.2 cents extra per kilowatt hour to their utility company if they wish to participate in purchasing green power in addition to paying their usual utility bill.
Other people do not have the option of purchasing green power through their utility company, or perhaps they prefer to consider purchasing certified green energy through organizations such as Green-e, Eco Electrons, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership.
One advantage of purchasing green power and becoming a member of the Green Power Partnership is good publicity for businesses and organizations. For example, the U.S. EPA has just released this year’s top purchasers of renewable energy. According to a publicity email from the EPA, “The top 10 on the list are Intel Corporation, Kohl’s Department Stores, Whole Foods Market, City of Houston, Dell Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Cisco Systems, Inc., Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, U.S. Air Force, and the City of Dallas.” It might cost a little more money, but these sustainable businesses and localities are now seen as environmental leaders based on their commitment to green energy use.
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Mon, Aug 09, 2010
Renewable Energy or Green Power is the solution to some major challenges like climate change, dependency on foreign oil and sustainable economic development thatface us today. Consumers have become sophisticated enough to realize this and they have started to support only those businesses that have sustainability built into their core values. Getting your organization green powered is thus not only the right thing to do but it makes sense from a business standpoint. Businesses are also realizing this as can be seen from the dramatic increase over the last few years in renewable energy purchases made specifically by commercial parties.
Due to deregulation of the electricity markets in select states, it is now possible for organizations in such states to run on green power while they cut down on energy costs. Our new whitepaper gives the reader some background on green power, its benefits to business and how an organization in deregulated electricity markets can go green while realizing energy savings at the same time.
Click here to download the whitepaper and learn how organizations can go green while realizing energy savings.
Posted by Kelly Smith on Tue, Jul 27, 2010
Purchase and production of green power are on the rise around the world. Government representatives from 170 countries came to December 2009’s Climate Conference in Copenhagen to discuss solutions to climate change. There are many new ideas and innovative technologies on the horizon, but energy efficiency and renewable energy remain an extremely important part of the solution. Different countries are taking different approaches to environmental responsibility. Some, like the UK, are making countrywide carbon dioxide emissions goals. Others, such as the United States, seem to be largely leaving the green power initiatives to individual communities, states, and businesses for now, while providing some government financial incentives to go green.
In the United States, about one-fourth of all utility companies offer individual consumers the option of purchasing green energy. Some states are much further along than others in terms of the opportunities for businesses and individuals to choose green power. In Wisconsin, a program called Focus on Energy has helped individuals and businesses to save $319 million dollars in energy costs in 2009 alone. Researchers in Ohio, North Carolina, and California have just recently been awarded big grants from the US Department of Energy to pursue innovative green electricity projects. Many northeastern US states such as Vermont are also working towards developing more sustainable energy sources. Voluntary programs such as the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership have also been successful in encouraging businesses and organizations to invest in renewable energy.
Canada is also working on voluntary carbon reductions. The province of British Columbia has decided to go carbon neutral. In addition to overhauling government waste, they will purchase renewable energy credits to offset their conventional electricity usage. Businesses in Canada are also taking the plunge. In the last few months, 184 green energy projects have been launched in Ontario, and 23 have taken off in British Columbia.
In Europe, many countries have more specific goals and regulations regarding carbon dioxide emissions. In the UK, a certain percentage of the power mix at each utility company must come from renewable sources. In Finland, 25.7% of their total power mix came from renewable sources in 2009. Portugal is striving to lead Europe in renewable energy production within the next few years.
France is an interesting case. Although almost none of its energy comes from renewable sources, it has the cleanest air in Europe since it uses 75 percent nuclear power. Nuclear power does not produce greenhouse gases, but it does have other environmental concerns such as the disposal of nuclear waste.
Around the world in Japan, sustainability efforts were lacking for a long time. Now part of the Japanese economic stimulus plan is to start investing in efforts to reduce climate change, such as investing in solar power installations and the production of electric cars. One problem is that emission reduction targets for businesses in Japan are only voluntary, and Japanese factories are big polluters.
Photo via Maggi_94
Posted by Kelly Smith on Tue, Jul 13, 2010
From gourmet cooking and artisan baking to making simple homecooked favorites, the recession and concerns about global environmental issues have conspired to raise interest in do-it-yourself cooking projects at home. Rather than driving a car to spend a lot of money at an expensive restaurant, people are learning the ropes in their own kitchens. Even the purchase of premium ingredients is cheaper than paying for someone else’s expertise.
Premium choices include organic ingredients. Choosing organic ingredients is better for the environment as well as for families. Children are especially susceptible to pesticides, which makes organics the obvious choice for many people.
Organic milk and organic produce may be closer to the forefront of people’s minds when they are shopping, but organic dry goods are also widely available at many groceries. Choosing a company that grows and processes organic foods is often making a choice to patronize a company that is concerned about environmental sustainability beyond just the issue of pesticide usage.
One such sustainable business is Great River Organic Milling, a company that has been working towards environmental sustainability for 25 years as they provide consumers with premium flours, hot cereals, and baking mixes. A US EPA Green Power Partner based in Wisconsin, Great River Organic Milling purchases Renewable Energy Credits to equal 100 percent of their conventional power usage while also working to minimize their carbon emissions.
Great River Organic Milling produces stoneground organic flours, which are better for people and the environment as well as being more flavorful than conventional white flours. Best of all, Great River Organic Milling products can now be found at some Sam’s Club locations, mainly in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. Interested shoppers outside of the upper Midwest can also purchase Great River Organic Milling flours from Amazon.com.
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Sun, Jul 11, 2010
"We don't have a long-term plan for humanity," Ted Turner said during the 2010 Summit Series in DC. "Global warming is by far the most complex problem facing us today and we need to phase out fossil fuels...," Ted said. Check out the video.
Posted by Kelly Smith on Wed, Jul 07, 2010
Codero offers web hosting services that are powered by 100 percent green power for small and medium-sized businesses. Anyone looking to fill their green IT needs should consider Codero, a sustainable business which is based in Kansas City and powered by wind farms in Iowa. An EPA Green Power Partner that purchases Green-e certified green electricity through EcoElectrons, Codero estimates that it offsets the annual conventional electricity usage of 1,255 homes.
Businesses that use Codero’s services get to use the Codero logo to show their customers that they are a sustainable business seeking to shrink their carbon footprint. Research shows that environmentally friendly companies increase customer satisfaction. There are many ways to become more environmentally sound in your business practices.
Becoming a member of the U.S. EPA’s Green Power Partnership is a good way to network with other businesses and organizations that are concerned about reducing their carbon footprint and fighting global climate change. It is also an excellent way to broaden your customer base. Choosing to patronize other Green Power Partners for your company’s needs, such as green IT services, boosts your eco-credibility.
Over 70 new organizations have decided to join the Green Power Partnership recently. Amherst College; the Indianapolis Zoo; the City of New Haven, Connecticut; the Baltimore Airport Hilton; Madison Computer Works; Biomass Thermal Energy Council; Dutch Mill Catering; and Ogden Publications are just a few of the new members spanning industries from green information technology to sustainable real estate to environmentally friendly health care.
Posted by Hudson DeWeese on Tue, Jun 29, 2010
Originally the BloomBox, invented by K.R. Sridhar, was designed for NASA to take fuel and electricity to create oxygen by means of a fuel cell to be used on a mission to Mars. Once NASA canceled the mission Sridhar reversed the operation of his invention to use fuel and oxygen out of the atmosphere to create electricity. Sridhar aggressively predicts that the BloomBox will be implemented in every house in America in less the ten years and will effectively replace power plants.
BloomEnergy has reportedly raised $400 million to develop the BloomBox which has been implemented in companies like Google and EBay for over nine months. The companies that have been testing the BloomBox have had little and inexpensive maintenance costs. The effectiveness of the BloomBox has attracted investors like Kleiner Perkins who also funded Google when it was starting out. The BloomBox is getting much attention because of its small size, low noise output and efficiency. It is expected to cost an average U.S. home less than $3,000. It can run on various gasses including natural gas, methane from landfills, and biomass. Mass manufacturing does present a problem as BloomEnergy is only able to produce one BloomBox a day.
Bloombox also saves electricity that is being lost through transmission lines and the power grid. Transmission lines are the large electrical lines that carry electricity from the power plants to our homes. 6.5% of the total power in the U.S. is lost due to the transportation of electricity. If BloomBoxes are implemented in every house, this alone will save the 6.5% of electricity that is wasted annually.
The BloomBox is a revolutionary green energy development. If K.R. Sridhar can mass manufacture the product and drive the price down, the implementation of this device could be the next big thing. Click here to watch a 60 Minutes interview with K.R. Sridhar explaining the function of the BloomBox in more detail.
Posted by Kelly Smith on Mon, Jun 28, 2010
Experts from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Pentagon, the U.S. State Department, and the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines have discovered a huge wealth of mineral deposits beneath the war-torn soils of Afghanistan. Minerals such as copper, iron, gold, aluminum, silver, and lithium have the potential to have an amazing impact on Afghanistan’s economy and infrastructure if they can be mined without corruption.
This is a big discovery on the worldwide renewable energy front as well, since lithium is used to make rechargeable batteries. Lithium ion batteries are the most popular rechargeable batteries on the market today since they are lightweight, don’t lose charge easily, don’t degrade in performance over time, and don’t cost a great deal more than standard batteries.
Rechargeable battery technology is an important aspect of green power because batteries are places where energy can be stored after it has been collected from a green energy source such as solar panels. Both fuel cells and rechargeable batteries are also important to the further development of electric car technology.
Electric cars need to plug into an electric power source to charge. Electric cars like the Chevrolet Volt can run for 40 miles on electricity alone without dipping into their gasoline reserves. If the Volt can’t be recharged after 40 miles of driving, it can still travel hundreds of miles on just one tank of gas. Using a car such as the Volt can seriously decrease the carbon footprint of individuals and businesses concerned about sustainability.
Electric cars are preferable to standard cars because electricity burned in a power plant, although it still creates emissions, is much cleaner than the internal combustion engine in a gasoline car. An even more planet-friendly solution would be electric cars powered exclusively by green electricity from renewable energy sources. That is the green transportation of the future, and rechargeable batteries are a step in the right direction.
Posted by Hudson DeWeese on Wed, Jun 23, 2010
The particles released into the atmosphere from aerosols and planes are actually reflecting sunlight back into space which is found to have the effect of cooling the earth. During the three days that followed September 11th, 2001, it was noticed that the average daytime temperature increased by 1.8°F, which proves the significance of what is called global dimming. Some believe that global dimming can be used to as a geoengineering technique to reduce the impact of global warming when in reality it is a cheap and temporary fix to combat global warming.
The full temperature effects of global dimming are not yet fully understood due to the challenge of recording the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere. Regions that are downwind from major sources of air pollution have generally cooled, which makes global dimming intriguing. This may also explain why the eastern United States is cooling compared to the warming western part.
Aerosols generally have a life of one week until they get collected by rain and fall to the earth's surface. While in the atmosphere, aerosols have a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight back into space while during the nighttime it actually prevents the earth from cooling by trapping the heat in. It has also been noticed that aerosols can decrease rain fall which interferes with the hydrological cycle. In general, most techniques of temporarily cooling the earth's atmosphere have a cooling effect in some regions but a heating effect in others giving no overall change in the earth's climate. For example, volcanic ash has been shown to cool down the atmosphere in a similar way aerosols do, but once the ash settles it absorbs sunlight which in return heats the atmosphere.
The use of green energy reduces the amount of sulfides and CO2 in the atmosphere which has a direct relationship to global warming, which as a result is cooling the earth. Where global dimming is just masking these effects for a temporary amount of time and has yet to be proven effective past regional effects. Although green energy doesn't have an immediate effect on the climate like a volcanic eruption does, there is proof that green energy works with no repercussions of having the earth warm in any other areas.
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Mon, Jun 21, 2010
This is a guest post by Barbara Young. Barbara writes on motorhome solar power in her personal hobby web site 12voltsolarpanels.net. Her efforts are dedicated to helping people save energy using solar energy to lower CO2 emissions and energy dependency.
What is solar power ?
Solar energy is radiant energy that's produced by the sun. Daily the sun radiates, or sends out, an immense quantity of energy. The sun radiates more energy in one second than people have used since the beginning of time!
The energy of the Sun derives from within the sun itself. Like other stars, the sun is mostly a big ball of gases--mostly hydrogen and helium atoms.
The hydrogen atoms in the sun's core combine to form helium and generate energy in a process called nuclear fusion.
During nuclear fusion, the sun's extremely high pressure and temperature cause hydrogen atoms to come apart and their nuclei (the central cores of the atoms) to fuse or combine. Four hydrogen nuclei fuse to become one helium atom. But the helium atom contains less mass compared to four hydrogen atoms that fused. Some matter is lost during nuclear fusion. The lost matter is emitted into space as radiant energy.
It requires an incredible number of years for the energy in the sun's core to make its way to the solar surface, after which just a little over eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles to earth. The solar energy travels to the earth at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, the speed of sunshine.
Only a small part of the power radiated from the sun into space strikes the earth, one part in two billion. Yet this volume of energy is enormous. Each day enough energy strikes america to supply the nation's energy needs for one and a half years!
Where does all of this energy go?
About 15 percent of the sun's energy which hits the earth is reflected back into space. Another 30 percent is used to evaporate water, which, lifted into the atmosphere, produces rainfall. Solar energy is also absorbed by plants, the land, and the oceans. The remaining could be employed to supply our energy needs.
Who invented solar energy ?
People have harnessed solar technology for hundreds of years. As early as the 7th century B.C., people used simple magnifying glasses to concentrate the light of the sun into beams so hot they'd cause wood to catch fire. More than a century ago in France, a scientist used heat from a solar collector to create steam to drive a steam engine. At first of this century, scientists and engineers began researching ways to use solar power in earnest. One important development was obviously a remarkably efficient solar boiler introduced by Charles Greeley Abbott, a united states astrophysicist, in 1936.
The solar water heater gained popularity at this time in Florida, California, and the Southwest. The industry started in the early 1920s and was in full swing just before World War II. This growth lasted prior to the mid-1950s when low-cost natural gas became the primary fuel for heating American homes.
People and world governments remained largely indifferent to the possibilities of solar power prior to the oil shortages of the1970s. Today, people use solar technology to heat buildings and water and also to generate electricity.
How we use solar power today ?
Solar power can be used in a variety of ways, of course. There are 2 simple kinds of solar energy:
- Solar thermal energy collects the sun's warmth through 1 of 2 means: in water or in an anti-freeze (glycol) mixture.
- Solar photovoltaic energy converts the sun's radiation to usable electricity.
Let us discuss the five most practical and popular solutions solar energy is employed:
- Small portable solar photovoltaic systems. We see these used everywhere, from calculators to solar garden products. Portable units can be used for everything from RV appliances while single panel systems can be used traffic signs and remote monitoring stations.
- Solar pool heating. Running water in direct circulation systems via a solar collector is an extremely practical way to heat water for your pool or hot tub.
- Thermal glycol energy to heat water. In this method (indirect circulation), glycol is heated by the sun's rays and the heat is then transferred to water in a hot water tank. This process of collecting the sun's energy is much more practical now than ever before. In areas as far north as Edmonton, Alberta, solar thermal to heat water is economically sound. It can pay for itself in 3 years or less.
- Integrating solar photovoltaic energy into your home or business power. In most parts on the planet, solar photovoltaics is an economically feasible solution to supplement the power of your own home. In Japan, photovoltaics are competitive with other types of power. In the USA, new incentive programs make this form of solar power ever more viable in many states. An increasingly popular and practical way of integrating solar energy into the power of your home or business is through the use of building integrated solar photovoltaics.
- Large independent photovoltaic systems. When you have enough sun power at your site, you may be able to go off grid. You may also integrate or hybridize your solar power system with wind power or other types of sustainable energy to stay 'off the grid.'
How can Photovoltaic panels work ?
Silicon is mounted beneath non-reflective glass to produce photovoltaic panels. These panels collect photons from the sun, converting them into DC electrical power. The power created then flows into an inverter. The inverter transforms the power into basic voltage and AC electricity.
Solar cells are prepared with particular materials called semiconductors such as silicon, which is presently the most generally used. When light hits the Photovoltaic cell, a specific share of it is absorbed inside the semiconductor material. This means that the energy of the absorbed light is given to the semiconductor.
The energy unfastens the electrons, permitting them to run freely. Solar cells also have more than one electric fields that act to compel electrons unfastened by light absorption to flow in a specific direction. This flow of electrons is a current, and by introducing metal links on the top and bottom of the -Photovoltaic cell, the current can be drawn to use it externally.
Do you know the pros and cons of solar technology ?
Solar Pro Arguments
- Heating our homes with oil or natural gas or using electricity from power plants running with coal and oil is a cause of global warming and climate disruption. Solar power, on the contrary, is clean and environmentally-friendly.
- Solar hot-water heaters require little maintenance, and their initial investment can be recovered in just a relatively limited time.
- Solar hot-water heaters can work in nearly every climate, even just in very cold ones. Simply choose the right system for your climate: drainback, thermosyphon, batch-ICS, etc.
- Maintenance costs of solar powered systems are minimal and the warranties large.
- Financial incentives (USA, Canada, European states...) can reduce the price of the initial investment in solar technologies. The U.S. government, for instance, offers tax credits for solar systems certified by by the SRCC (Solar Rating and Certification Corporation), which amount to 30 percent of the investment (2009-2016 period).
Solar Cons Arguments
- The initial investment in Solar Water heaters or in Solar PV Electric Systems is higher than that required by conventional electric and gas heaters systems.
- The payback period of solar PV-electric systems is high, as well as those of solar space heating or solar cooling (only the solar hot water heating payback is short or relatively short).
- Solar water heating do not support a direct combination with radiators (including baseboard ones).
- Some air conditioning (solar space heating and the solar cooling systems) are expensive, and rather untested technologies: solar air-con isn't, till now, a truly economical option.
- The efficiency of solar powered systems is rather determined by sunlight resources. It's in colder climates, where heating or electricity needs are higher, that the efficiency is smaller.