Sustainablog

GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily talks with green blogger and eco-entrepreneur Shea Gunther, previously of EarthFirst.com and now with MNN.

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Tired of your increasing electric bills?  Want to change your relationship with energy, making your own, renewable, local power while doing your part to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and lessening the impacts of climate change?

Read no further than Power from the Wind: A practical guide to small-scale energy production (New Society), by prolific writer and sustainable living practitioner Dan Chiras, with contributions by Mick Sagrillo and Ian Woofenden.  This book helps you assess your energy needs, your site’s wind energy potential, and sort out every aspect of the design, purchase and installation of a small-scale, or residential, wind system.  Amazingly, it does so without demanding that you be some technical tinkerer or electrical engineer.

A big part of sustainability is being able to meet some or all of your energy needs, yourself, with renewable energy if you’re fortunate enough to live in a place where it’s windy.  The timing couldn’t be better for the release of their authoritative book as millions of dollars in state and federal funding support or tax incentives are being made available for homeowners and businesses to install such systems.

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Last year was a bright spot for the solar industry, despite dark economic clouds and forecasts that rolled in during 2008’s final few months.

SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association) just released its yearly review, which identified 2008 as the third in a string of record growth years.

The numbers were for the US solar market, with a highlight of 1,265 megawatts (MW) of new installed solar power. The figure includes all forms of the energy resource, from photovoltaic (PV) to home and water heating. PV modules accounted for 342 MW of that total. A conversion formula is used to express solar heating capacity in an electrical equivalent.

Returns on investment for solar electric installations typically take longer than heating applications. Yet while thermal power has comprised the lion’s share of the solar market since 2000, the percentage of PV growth for the same period has been greater and more stable.

States also made strides last year in terms of solar legislation. Already a leader in the solar hot water arena, Hawaii further bolstered that title last year when it began requiring that all new construction include the technology.

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A “green economy” can be built in China in less than 20 years, argues a new McKinsey report. The new study, “China’s Green Revolution“, offers the most comprehensive quantitative analysis to date of China’s abatement cost curve.

Previous studies of a similar ilk, like the Stern Review, have incorporated social benefits to partially offset the cost of scaling up energy efficient and clean technologies. In contrast, the latest McKinsey report considers only technology-related costs and attaches a figure to the cost of green initiatives in China.

So what is the final damage? While costs are negative for upgrades in some industries, like buildings, due to the savings generated from energy efficiency improvements, a total 1.5-2 trillion yuan (USD 220-295 billion) would have to be spent every year until 2030 in order to reach McKinsey’s alternative scenario. Read the rest of this entry »

Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Ho is most famous in business for his vast and infamous casino empire and unofficial title as one of Asia’s richest people (his estimated US$8 billion net worth earned him the 113th rank in Forbes’ 2007 list of “the World’s Billionaires”). Might news of his recent clean energy joint venture with Portugal’s top power company bring him a new title: “the Chinese T. Boone Pickens“?

According to Macauhub, a government-sponsored news publication-cum-commerce division that reports business-related news in the Pearl River region and in Portugese-speaking countries, Ho has created a renewable energy partner firm with Portugal’s Energias de Portugal (EDP), which will be known as EDP-Energy Solutions Asia. Read the rest of this entry »

While unemployment skyrockets and banks decline, there remains a ray of hope right around the corner: spring. For those of us living in the Midwest, now is that time of anticipation when March peaks on the calendar and we vocally vent together about how the “worst is behind us.”

Seed catalogs jam mailboxes this time of year. We Wisconsin gardeners lustfully gaze at the Royal Burgundy Bush Bean and Panorama Red Shades Bee Balm like tempting centerfolds, vividly dreaming of starting anew in the field once again.

But these seed catalogs offer more than just plant starters. Dig a dash deeper and this arrival of the seed catalogs summons a message that can germinate just what this country of angst-ridden job seekers could really use: hope. Hope wrapped in a message of self-employment of the ecopreneurial variety. Plant seeds for your own green business, follow your passion for leaving this world a better place, and you just might amaze yourself at the true prosperity your harvest.

Here are three tips reaped from the pages of seed catalogs on how to become a self-employed, independent ecopreneur: Read the rest of this entry »

By Lester R. Brown

Aside from the overriding need to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels to stabilize climate, there are several other compelling reasons for countries everywhere to restructure their transport systems, including the need to prepare for falling oil production, to alleviate traffic congestion, and to reduce air pollution. The U.S. car-centered transportation model, with three cars for every four people, that much of the world aspires to will not likely be viable over the long term even for the United States, much less for everywhere else.

The shape of future transportation systems centers around the changing role of the automobile. This in turn is being influenced by the transition from a predominantly rural global society to a largely urban one. By 2020 close to 55 percent of us will be living in cities, where the role of cars is diminishing. In Europe, where this process is well along, car sales in almost every country have peaked and are falling.

With world oil output close to peaking, there will not be enough economically recoverable oil to support a world fleet expansion along U.S. lines or, indeed, to sustain the U.S. fleet. Oil shocks are now a major security risk. The United States, where 88 percent of the 133 million working people travels to work by car, is dangerously vulnerable.

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Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine Professor Junichi Takahashi and the Sumitomo Corporation research group (both in Japan) have jointly developed technology to produce hydrogen from cattle dung and urine for use in fuel cells. They say the same can be done with human waste.

The researchers say the process allows for the production of hydrogen without producing unwanted carbon dioxide. Given its potential utility with human waste, the idea also may open pathways to household toilet technology: “toilet generators.” Read the rest of this entry »

There’s gold in them thar hills!

But to mine it you first must find it, and a revamped website now provides an extremely easy way to do just that. While all that glitters is indeed not gold, this precious resource is far more valuable – wind.

3Tier’s website tool FirstLook allows average Internet users to mine their neighborhoods for wind power potential. Users familiar with Google Maps will feel right at ease with the software, which offers wind assessment for all of North America. For those of us fooled by intentionally vague oil and gas ads, that region includes the US, Canada and Mexico.

Users can type in their town and state, and the site will direct a cursor to the spot. The wind prospector then zooms in for a more detailed view of the resource’s potential for that area.  For greater precision, coordinates can be fed into the search in lieu of a town or state. FirstLook essentially puts a push pin in the area of the user’s choice, providing detailed reports of wind resources at that site.

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Luna Road Lights is looking at road safety, driven by the sun. In the Luna Road concept, solar-powered LEDs known as “cat eyes” line the edges and lanes of roads. The intent is a clean, green life-preserver that enables better night awareness.

According to a Luna Road press release published online by LEDs Magazine:

Luna Road Lights removes the need for car headlights to reflect on conventional road markers in order to provide nighttime visibility. The increased illuminated visibility delivered by the Luna Road Lights will serve as a warning indication to drivers on the road from miles away, providing drivers with more visual information, allowing them to average more effectively while driving, in addition to increasing the decision making time for drivers on the roads at night.

Fantastic. Read the rest of this entry »