Energy For Good
From WikiForGood
Biodiesel Fuel
Tri-State Biodiesel is a New York City based social enterprise dedicated to providing the city and the surrounding region with clean, renewable Biodiesel fuel made from recycled cooking oil. REALLY COOL! Many restaurants will post a small, unobtrusive sticker indicating that they donate their used cooking oil to this iniative.
Efficient Cooking Stoves
Article excerpt (January 24, 2010): "Before the earthquake Haiti needed cooking stoves because an estimated 800,000 of its residents cook either on an open fire or with an unimproved stove that resembles a baby's crib with no mattress in it... "horribly inefficient," said general manager of the fledgling company StoveTec, a for-profit spinoff of the Cottage Grove nonprofit Aprovecho Research Center. After the hurricane, StoveTec shipped 1,344 flower pot-sized "rocket stoves" that stand a mere 12 inches high but can combust wood and biomass fuels at a scorching 850 degrees Celsius. They're portable, up to 50 percent more efficient than an open flame and they emit up to 70 percent fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The company produces and sells the "rocket stoves" for prices starting at $8 to some of the 3 billion people who cook over an open fire or use unimproved stoves on six continents.
The company's cost to manufacture the 12-inch high biomass stoves is about $20, but by funneling money it earns from carbon credit programs into the effort, and selling the stoves to consumers in the United States for about $40, StoveTec can subsidize the venture, getting stoves into the world's poorest nations for half the production cost. StoveTec can reach 80 percent of the market for these stoves by selling them for $10 apiece, West said."
Energy Poverty
Sharp solar-powered TV According to Sharp Corporation (Jul 7 2008), there are approximately 1.6 billion people living on the planet without access to television due to being geographically situated beyond the reach of conventional power-delivery grid systems. However, the consumer electronics company reckons it has a prototype answer to that demographic shortfall in the form of an ultra low power consumption 26-inch LCD television that enables “off-the-grid” viewing via a connected solar module equal in size to the actual television set.
Energy Security
Operation Free Military veterans for energy independence and clean, renewable energy in the U.S.
Financing Energy Efficiency
The Cambridge Energy Alliance is a new non-profit organization that will create and implement a groundbreaking program to significantly reduce energy use in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Alliance will reach out to residents, businesses, institutions, and municipal government with a host of programs to reduce the use of electricity, natural gas, oil, gasoline, diesel fuel, and water in Cambridge. The Alliance will also promote efforts to install clean energy (such as solar panels) and dual use heat and power units at facilities throughout Cambridge. The Cambridge Energy Alliance will design, market, finance, document, and manage this massive effort to improve energy efficiency throughout the city. A revolving fund will be created with funding from private investors and revenues from new public programs designed to stimulate energy conservation savings. As a result, energy savings and clean energy installations will in most cases be paid for by project financing and be repaid from energy savings resulting from conservation measures installed in homes, businesses, government facilities, and institutional buildings such as universities. These projects will be designed to complement and amplify the existing efficiency efforts of the local utility, NSTAR. No upfront costs will be required for such installations, and there will be no cost to Cambridge or state taxpayers.
In March, 2007, Bank of America announced a new, ten-year $20 billion environmental initiative to address climate change and encourage sustainable business practices through our lending, investing, corporate philanthropy and the creation of new products and services.
Citigroup announced on May 8th, 2007, that it will direct $50 billion over the next 10 years to address global climate change through investments, financings and related activities to support the commercialization and growth of alternative energy and clean technology among the clients and markets it serves, as well as within its own businesses and operations.
Creative Ways to Save Energy Around the Home
- During winter, you can dry your clothes using a clothes drying rack or clothes line in your bedroom. This humidifies your bed room, while simultaneously saving a significant amount of energy by avoiding use of the clothes dryer. I do this each week and my clothes are usually completely dry in well under 24 hours. Some items, like boxer shorts dry in just a few hours. If your clothes rack lacks enough space for all your items, you can hang boxer shorts and socks along the edges of your laundry bin and in other creative spots like on door knobs. It gives the room a festive look, and who knows, with all that underwear hanging around, you might get into a frisky romantic mood and have some more fun in the bed room!
- Avoid pouring hot water down the drain, when feasible. For example, when you take a hot shower in the winter, leave the hot water in the tub. And when you boil a big pot of water for pasta, pour the hot water into another vessel rather than down the sink.
Home Energy Smackdown (January 9, 2008 ) "Most Americans know they should decrease their energy consumption, but many need a push to do it. Three families in this suburb north of Boston got that incentive by appearing on "Energy Smackdown," a reality TV show in which contestants competed to shrink their carbon footprint. The program aired on a local cable TV station during August and September."
College & University Green Initiatives
Harvard's Green Building Resource is an impressive collection of information and tools to guide the implementation of Harvard's Green Building Guidelines and Harvard's Sustainability Principles. It includes the experience and knowledge gained from Harvard's 25 complete or in progress LEED projects, process oriented information on the LEED process, and "how to" resources on improving cost-effective and innovative green building design.
Colleges that buy 100% of their power from clean energy sources (source: Energy Action Coalition)
- Bowdoin College, Maine
- Colby College, Maine
- College of the Atlantic, Maine
- Concordia University, Texas
- Duke's Fuqua School of Business, North Carolina
- Evergreen State College, Washington
- Unity College, Maine
- University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma
- UC Santa Cruz, California
- Western Washington University, Washington
Oil Companies
BP Deep Sixes Green Program (February 25, 2008) BP's new CEO is going to focus the oil giant on oil rather than continuing investments in renewable energy to diversify its energy mix. This is a huge step backward for climate and for BP, in my opinion.
Solar
NanoSolar announces it is shipping panels that cost less then $1 per watt, making its solar cells cost-competitive with fossil fuel generation. Here comes the sun!
Tidal Power
World's Largest Tidal Turbine to be installed in Scotland.
Wave Power
Ocean Wave Power: This Wikipedia.org page gives an excellent overview of the history and future potential for generating electricity from ocean waves.
- "Wave Power: The Coming Wave" from the Economist, June 5, 2008
- "The untimely death of Salter's Duck" - 29 July 1992
- "Ocean Power Fights Current Thinking" - March 28, 2005
- "Wave energy in New Zealand"
- "How it works: Wave power station" - 20 November, 2000
- An Ocean Wave Energy Converter Using Rotors
- Oceanography: Waves - by Dr J Floor Anthoni 2000
- "Waves"
- List of most wave energy devices
- EU Wavetrain project — A series of full-text, on-line scientific publications on physical concepts.
Wind Enery
Pickens Plan Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns. That's a lot of money, but it's a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it's a bargain. We currently use natural gas to produce 22% of our electricity. Harnessing the power of wind to generate electricity will give us the flexibility to shift natural gas away from electricity generation and put it to use as a transportation fuel — reducing our dependence on foreign oil by more than one-third.
Turning Oil Rigs Into Wind Farms (February 2007) Formed in 2004, Wind Energy Systems Technology (WEST) is on track to commercialize offshore wind power in the Gulf of Mexico. To save the expense of designing and building specialized offshore wind equipment, WEST planst to mount conventional windmills on decommissioned oil platforms. Hurricanes could be a problem, so they decided to outfit their windmills with hydraulic lifts scavenged from oil-industry machinery; the system will lower the turbines in the event of a squall. All told, the economics would enable WEST to compete with land-based wind power—in which Texas leads the nation—as well as with energy from increasingly pricey natural gas and newer coal plants that are still paying off construction costs. (Link and tex are from a Wired Magazine article from February, 2007.)
McCain Touts Green Policies At Wind Energy Firm - But He Opposed Their Key Legislation (05-12-08)
Greener Personal Computers
80Plus.org members sell energy-efficient PCs that run cooler and save money and electricity. HP is the first major PC manufacturer to participate.
Products For Home Energy Savings
The Power Cost Monitor displays energy cost data for your home on a portable screen. Studies show that monitoring your energy use is a powerful motivator for saving energy. Simply attach the optical pick-up on the outside of your "under-glass" power meter and it transmits energy use back to the display unit. The display shows you energy use in real time in kW and in dollars.
