Dear Miami Greentech readers:
This week I took the liberty of compiling all the articles (that I could find) related to Greentech that appeared in the NY Times in the last week (from the 23rd to the 29th). I also included one piece of publicity that I found interesting.
Please browse them and let me know if you can find a pattern in this multidimensional web of information, or at least if you think we are moving forward towards a cleaner environment.
One interesting note about this week's articles is that there was a Special Section on "The Business of Green" on Sept 24th.
So without further ado. Here are the articles:
September 23
Chrysler Enters the Race to Introduce Electric Models
After seeming to fall behind in the race for alternative-fuel vehicles, Chrysler said on Tuesday that it would produce an electric car for sale in 2010 and follow it up with a broad lineup of battery-powered vehicles.
September 24
Amid Boom, Concerns at Small Solar Firms
Solar power is in the midst of a boom in the United States. High energy costs are one reason. But what may be more important are generous state and power company incentives and rebates, as well as tax credits that make solar systems affordable to many more people and businesses.
Solar Panels Are Vanishing, Only to Reappear on the Internet
Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves.
THE four stationary bikes look almost like any others, except that they are fitted with an arm crank and are hooked up to a generator. As riders pedal and turn the lever, the movement creates a current that flows to a battery pack. They generate an average of 200 watts, enough to run the stereo, a 37-inch L.C.D. television and a laptop for an hour at this new gym in Portland, Ore.
Saving the Earth, One Road Race at a Time
Race organizers are working to reduce the amount of waste produced at their races.
While competing in a half Ironman triathlon two years ago, Bruce Raynor had an epiphany: this event, so rooted in strength and good health, was actually polluting the planet. This led Mr. Raynor to create Athletes for a Fit Planet, which helps races become a bit greener by installing recycling bins, ridding themselves of plastic bags and offsetting carbon emissions
A Building That Blooms and Grows, Balancing Nature and Civilization
In the California Academy of Sciences an exhibit of architecture under the motto: “humanity is only one part of an endlessly complex universal system”
SPECIAL SECTION: BUSINESS OF GREEN - Sep 24
On Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, a futuristic experiment posing as an ordinary fuel station may be bringing the world one step closer to the hydrogen age.
What should come first — the fuel-cell car or the hydrogen pump? Automakers and oil companies answer is to introduce both cars and new fuel stations, clustering them in urban centers like Los Angeles, Berlin and Tokyo.
Shell’s Santa Monica Boulevard station is part of this strategy. So is Honda’s decision to lease about 200 of its newly developed FCX Clarity cars over the next three years to selected customers in Southern California.
Coal, the “dark fuel,” may be the most visible villain of global warming, but its use is up and projected to go higher. In fact, the demand for coal is rising faster than the supply. So is the demand for oil.
Cleaner sources of fuel remain more expensive, less available and in shorter supply than an old standby.
Solar Projects Draw New Opposition
WHAT’S not to like about solar power? Sunlight is clean, quiet and abundant. If enough of it were harnessed and turned into electricity, it could be the solution to the energy crisis. But surprisingly, solar power projects are running into mounting opposition — and not from hard-nosed, coal-fired naysayers, but from environmentalists.
The opposition is particularly strong in Southern California. Aside from abundant sunshine and virtually cloudless skies, the California desert has altitude, so there is less atmospheric interference for the sun’s rays, as well as broad swaths of level land for installing equipment, and proximity to large, electricity-hungry cities. But it is also home to the Mojave ground squirrel, the desert tortoise and the burrowing owl, and to human residents who describe themselves as desert survivors
The Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy, an environmental group in Joshua Tree, said: “Our position is that none of this is needed. We support renewable energy, and we support California’s renewable energy targets, but we think it can be done through rooftop solar.”
Reclaiming His Place in the Sun
Arnold J. Goldman, once the world’s undisputed sun king, is back in business with a new company focusing on more efficient solar energy plants.
In 1989, Arnold J. Goldman was the world’s undisputed sun king. His realm was a desolate patch of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, where his company, Luz International, created the world’s largest solar energy installation. At the time, Luz’s plants generated roughly 90 percent of the solar energy on the planet.
Two years later, his reign was over, done in by an uninterested public. While the solar field that Luz built for Southern California Edison still runs today, the company went kaput, unable to compete profitably with the lower costs of companies producing electricity from traditional sources.
After 20 years wandering outside the desert, he is back, with a reconstituted company and a contract from Pacific Gas and Electric Company to purchase up to 900 megawatts of power while creating more efficient solar plants at Ivanpah, Calif., on the Nevada border.
A Cautious Approach to Nuclear Power
Nuclear power plants might seem like part of the solution to global warming, but few reactors are likely to be built soon.
With the federal government offering the nuclear industry $18.5 billion in loan guarantees and billions more in production tax credits and insurance against bureaucratic delays, at least a few new reactors seem certain to be built.
But reactors, it turns out, are not at the top of the list for stopping global warming, at least in the United States, at least not any time soon.
Among the issues are the cost of nuclear power, fears about safety and questions about how to dispose of waste.
Electricity From What Cows Leave Behind
For years, the cows at Green Mountain Dairy here produced only milk and manure. But recently they have generated something else: electricity.
The farm is part of a growing alternative energy program that converts the methane gas from cow manure into electricity that is sold to the power utility’s grid.
The Home Energy Audit Gets an Upgrade
Fuel costs and a drop in the price of special cameras that show where heat escapes from buildings have created a new market for energy auditors.
Kept Out of Landfills and Reborn as a Bag
TerraCycle makes tote bags, pencil cases and other products from juice boxes and candy wrappers, then sells them at some of the country’s biggest retailers.
Founded in 2001, TerraCycle is aiming to make billions by collecting used plastic bags, juice pouches, cookie wrappers and other items that cannot be recycled and fusing them into everyday items like tote bags, pencil cases and messenger bags to be sold at some of the country’s biggest retailers.
September 25
General Motors’ New Plant Will Build Smaller, Fuel-Sipping Engines
General Motors said Thursday that it intended to double its production of gas-sipping, four-cylinder engines by 2011.
To do so, G.M. said that it would invest $370 million in a plant to build its most fuel-efficient engines ever. The factory will open in 2010 and make 1.4-liter engines for two compact cars scheduled to go on sale late that year: the Chevrolet Cruze, which is expected to get about 45 miles a gallon in highway driving, and the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in vehicle whose engine will start after the battery is depleted.
Europe Toughens Its Auto Emissions Plan
European Union lawmakers proposed tougher-than-expected emissions goals for car makers, dealing a blow to the German automobile industry.
The bill would be the first legally binding carbon emission standard ever for new cars in Europe.
September 26
Nothing to report
September 27
Nothing to report
September 28
Nothing to report
September 29
Last December, Congress passed a useful energy bill that ratcheted up fuel economy standards for the first time in decades. That seems a long, long time ago. Since then, Congress has gone steadily and sadly backward on energy policy.
Progress on fuel economy standards will remain stalled unless the Senate overcomes its partisan divide over the issue.
PUBLICITY
AFS Trinity Power has developed patent-pending technology that makes it possible for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to achieve 150 MPG, go 40 miles in all-electric mode, and use gasoline for additional unlimited miles in hybrid mode.
To those of you who celebrated the new year this week:
SHANA TOVAH!
