I’ve been adding articles to this site from time to time and I think I ought to make a plug for the company I work for, which is working on making renewable energy available to everyone. Hey, Mark okayed it, so plugging your company must be cool! ; )

Shameless Plug for BeUtilityFree

Take the idea of energy sustainability and apply it to what are probably your largest energy uses: your home and car. That’s the approach of BeUtilityFree. Take a look at what we do at www.beutilityfree.com. (I’m the webmaster as well as a renewable energy installer, so I’d love to hear feedback on what you think of the site at brett_s AT BeUtilityFree.com.)

The grand plan is to start out by reducing the amount of energy you use through replacing your current fixtures and appliances with more efficient ones, or designing your new home with efficiency built right in. Then you can buy a much more affordable renewable energy system that will cover your modest needs.

Once you own your means of production, you start getting paid back through avoiding the ever-rising cost of fuel, selling renewable energy credits for your production, taking tax breaks and utility incentives and maybe even selling excess energy.

We sell energy-efficient appliances and lighting and renewable energy systems like solar electric, solar hot water, wind power, hydrogen cogeneration and ethanol stills. We’ll design renewable energy systems, install them or just sell the components to those who have the skills to set them up themselves.

Our special, can’t-find-them-anywhere-else items are Nickel-Iron batteries, the Superior Solar Storage Tank and our 3″ and 4″ column Ethanol Stills.

We are hoping to unveil a few exciting things in the near future. Among them are:

• A turn-key ethanol plant. Just put feedstock, water, enzymes and yeast in one end and watch the fuel pour out the other. We’re currently testing enzymes for cellulosic production so that making ethanol can be as inexpensive and sustainable as possible.
• A Purchase Power Agreement plan that lets anyone get solar energy from their rooftop without any up-front investment. We’d retain ownership of the solar system and sell you the energy at a rate lower than the utility company’s.

If we can get everyone to pump renewable energy into the grid or unplug and make their own energy sustainably, we’ll have taken a huge step toward getting this climate problem licked. And if everyone owns the source of their energy, we can all get out from under the thumb of the utility company and the US Oil War Machine and get back to making a poistive difference in the world.

Brett

Since open land is limited in New Jersey, and the state has pledged to get more of its power from renewable resources, moving wind turbines offshore seems to be the answer.  New Jersey is taking a leadership role in going for this offshore angle after other states have tried and failed.  Our current wars in the middle east combined with record high oil prices seem to be forcing people to take action and move toward renewable energy sources with a new enthusiasm that just wasn’t possible before.

Read the full article from Bloomberg.com here.

In late November, Google announced that it plans to spend somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars to support the development of renewable energy infrastructure in 2008 and hundreds of millions in the near future. Their plan is to spur the development of high-altitude wind generation (a technology as yet untested), solar thermal electricity generation and geothermal power first, then other technologies later, with the final goal of making renewable energy cheaper than coal. Take a look at TheDailyGreen.com article for more.  And here’s Google’s webpage on the project.
I can’t wait to see where this goes, especially what with being employed in the solar industry. Now, if only the federal government would follow suit…

The S-Blade Delta 1

photo: Pacwind Inc.

The show Modern Marvels (on the History Chanel) has been running green shows all week, and they recently ran a show called Environmental Tech 2. There is all kinds of great new stuff on the horizon, and some of it is here already.  The show will air again on Saturday November 17th at 4pm Eastern time.

Vertical axis wind turbines seem to have solved some of the problems with the large propeller-style windmills, especially the bird-kill problem. Pacwind Inc. is the company that has outfitted Jay Leno’s garage with wind power. The system looks great from their website, and I would love to talk with someone who is more knowledgeable about wind to see what they think. Please leave a comment if you can tell me more about this technology.

This week Nightly News on NBC is doing a series on green technology and trends.  So far they have covered Wind and Wave power, and there is more to come.

I have been against nuclear power for as long as I have given any thought to the issue.  I hate to say it, but I have just changed my mind.  There is a great article in a recent Discover Magazine that lays out the important details, and is the first comprehensive comparison I have seen of the pros and cons of nuclear vs. wind, solar, and coal.

Of course I strongly believe that we need to put massive effort into making solar power and other renewable energy sources viable, but the truth is that wind is not constant and solar is not yet very efficient.  When compared to the massive amount of coal we as a nation (the United States of America) burn, nuclear seems to be the lesser of the two evils until we can get renewables to cover a greater percentage of our energy needs.  To be sure, I ONLY see nuclear as a stop-gap measure, but we need to take action now to decrease our national carbon emissions.

Read the Discover Magazine article here.

photos: Michel Zumbrunn

The Venturi Company from Monaco is hitting the renewable energy vehicle market full-force. They have three different models already: The Eclectic (a golf-cart looking super eco-car; below), the Astrolab (in between a sports car, and a an eco-car; above), and the Fetish (all-out sports car).

Only the Fetish is in production at the moment, but all of the cars will be limited productions even when they are in full-swing. The Eclectic will have a run of only 200. This seems to be the first time that a car has used more than one renewable energy source at once: both wind and solar in the same car.

The ranges are still small, and the top speed of the Eclectic is only 31 mph, but I think all three cars have arrived as the first practical, production, renewable energy vehicles. Of course the top two models will cost a pretty penny (and have awesome performance to match), but that’s how it is with any new technology.

You can read more, and get all the specs at the Venturi website.

Tonight I was visited by someone from the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, and it inspired me to make the following plea to our nation’s leaders:

To our Leaders at all levels,

It’s time to get serious about Renewable Energy. This country has made some good steps, but it’s time for more serious action. We need a National Renewable Energy Standard (RES) for the United States. We need it for four reasons: environmentalism, to maintain our economy, to avoid an energy shortage, and for national security.

A Renewable Energy Standard is a plan that requires utilities to gradually increase the percentage of renewable energy in the total energy that they provide. Twenty states already have their own Renewable Energy Standards, and it’s time to follow their lead. This can be done locally, statewide, or nationally. With enough leaders at all levels working on it we will be able to have an impact.

I live in Indiana, and the main thing that has been in the news in this state regarding Renewable Energy is biofuel. Since we are a corn and soybean-growing state it makes sense to promote biodiesel, and I am very happy with the progress and the attention that biodiesel has gotten so far, but there is another area that deserves greater attention in Indiana and throughout the nation: wind. (more…)

 

Iowa Winds LLC is working on a windfarm that would cover 40,000 acres and involve 193 Iowa landowners.  This single project is a big step forward in the quest to be free of foreign oil, and will be a much more long-term and quickly profitable solution that drilling oil wells in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge.

40,000 Acre Windfarm Proposed for Iowa

Vail Resorts has announced that it will purcahse wind energy credits equal to 100% of it’s energy consumption for all five resorts, 125 retail locations, AND its new corporate headquarters in Broomfield CO. That’s amazing. Not only does it make them the second largest corporate purchaser of wind power, but it’s a really impressive example to coroprations all over the world… especially those who rely on Mother Nature for their livelyhood. Now we get to see if any other corporations will suck it up and step up to the plate.

Read the article here.