Alternative Solutions To PV Solar Energy Generation

Posted on September 1, 2011 by quest

Bay Area solar manufacturer Solyndra on Wednesday announced it is was shutting its doors and laying off all its 1,100 workers. Solyndra had been visited by Vice President Joe Bidden, Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Barrack Obama. The Daily Caller reported, “Solyndra also spent $550,000 lobbying Congress in 2010. Between 2008 and 2011, the company spent more than $1 million lobbying for bills including the “American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009″ and the “Solar Manufacturing Jobs Creation Act.”Despite Solyndra’s recent bankruptcy announcement, the Department of Energy and the White House insist the investment was not in vain. “The project that we supported succeeded,” a spokesman for the Department of Energy told The New York Times. “The facility was producing the product it said it would produce, and consumers were buying the product,” he said. “The company struggled because the market has changed dramatically.” “While we are disappointed by this particular outcome, we continue to believe the clean-energy jobs race is one that America can, must and will win,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said today in an emailed statement.

NPR reports, The Department of Energy notes that the federal loan guarantee “was pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations.” And, DOE spokesman Dan Leistikow wrote Wednesday, “we have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed, but we can’t stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America’s leadership in the global economy. These projects, which include more than 40 other companies, are on pace to create more than 60,000 jobs.”

Solar remains the fastest growing industry in the US and opportunities for alternative energy are fluid; including developments in spray on solar and some recent advancements in Graphene and Carbon Nanotube technology.

Daryl Hannah Arrested at White House

Keystone Pipeline Not in Our National Interest

by Peter Lehner

Beyond Irene: The Future Of Hurricanes

Posted on August 29, 2011 by quest

By Natalie Wolchover - Hurricane Irene battered the East Coast this weekend, blasting buildings and trees that hadn’t felt such strong winds in decades, and flooding subways, tunnels and entire coastal neighborhoods.
Thankfully, Irene diminished in strength before making landfall on the Mid-Atlantic Coast and New England; though she is estimated to have caused $7 billion in damages, things could have been a lot worse. And atmospheric scientists say they will be.
They warn that hurricanes will get more destructive in the future. And as oceans warm, more and more of the strongest storms will creep north.

Warm seas
About 90 tropical cyclones form worldwide each year; that pace hasn’t changed recently. Rather than causing more hurricanes and typhoons to develop, the 0.5-degree Celsius rise in tropical sea surface temperatures that has occurred over the past 30 years seems to have another effect. As Colorado State atmospheric scientist James Elsner ominously put it: “The strongest storms are getting stronger.”

Hurricanes are like heat engines, Elsner explained. When the ocean puts more heat in, more energy comes out in the form of faster winds that blow for longer. As detailed in a 2008 paper in Nature (and in later studies analyzing subsequent hurricane seasons), he and his colleagues have noticed a steady upward trend in the maximum wind speed of the strongest hurricanes. For the top fifth most intense hurricanes, wind speeds have increased by 4.5 miles per hour per degree-Celsius rise in the ocean temperature. For storms in the top 10th of the intensity ranking, wind speeds have increased by 14.5 mph per degree Celsius. That’s a jump of almost an entire category on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale that rates

Fabien Cousteau, Keynote Speaker at Ecotourism Conference

Sugarcane to Supply Rio Buses with Renewable Energy

Posted on July 29, 2011 by quest

Amyris Brasil Ltda., a subsidiary of Amyris, Inc. has announced that it will supply renewable diesel during a 12-month fleet test involving 20 city buses in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The renewable fuel derived from sugarcane, known locally as Diesel de Cana, will be blended at a 30 percent rate with petroleum-derived diesel and used in Mercedes-Benz buses operated by Viação Saens Peña, a Rio-based bus operator. The Rio transportation federation, FETRANSPOR, will use the data collected during this fleet test to evaluate the engine and environmental benefits of Amyris’s renewable diesel. The results of the fleet test will be presented at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) taking place in Rio in June 2012.

“We are ready to meet the growing demand for cane-derived renewable fuels in Rio as the city prepares to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.”“We are thrilled to expand the use of our renewable diesel to Brazil’s second-largest city. This will be the first large-scale use of our Diesel de Cana at a blend of 30 percent in Brazil,” said John Melo, CEO of Amyris. “We continue to see strong demand for our renewable fuels, particularly as more engine suppliers and transport operators validate their performance.”

Lady on the Bus Sonia Braga

The city of Rio de Janeiro has more than 8,000 buses consuming about 280 million liters of diesel per year. The Rio fleet test is expected to validate the significant reduction of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions evidenced in recent Mercedes-Benz engine tests with a 30 percent blend of Amyris’s renewable diesel. “Rio’s government and public transportation authorities are committed to leading by example in addressing climate change, and Amyris—along with our partners Mercedes-Benz, Petrobras, Michelin and BNDES—is honored to play a role in addressing Rio’s transportation needs,” said Paulo Diniz, president of Amyris Brasil. “We are ready to meet the growing demand for cane-derived renewable fuels in Rio as the city prepares to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.”

Elektra One A New Solar Powered Plane

Cities Confront Climate Change in Cancun

Posted on December 12, 2010 by quest

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, “COP 16 marked a defining moment for local governments’ critical role in addressing the devastating impact of climate change,” said Executive Director Martin Chavez.”The ICLEI USA Delegation combined forces with over 150 mayors worldwide to ensure that the next global climate deal empowers local governments and to show that local government voluntary actions can be measured and verified. Local governments are change agents for climate action, from planning to implementation, leading by example and stimulating demand for renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as driving private sector investment that spurs clean technology and innovation. While modest agreements were achieved this year in Mexico, there is no doubt that local governments continue to lead the way on climate action.” ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the ‘International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives‘. The Council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York.

After two weeks of sometimes tense and difficult negotiations, nations set aside their differences and joined forces to develop a shared global approach to addressing the threat of climate change. This is a remarkable achievement and an encouraging turn of events that resulted in considerable progress to advance climate action. All of the delegation members, international NGOs, business NGOs and Local Government representatives that worked tirelessly and contributed to achieving a final positive outcome are worthy of tremendous admiration and praise.

“Although everyone would have hoped for a much stronger climate agreement that would be legally binding and sets clear targets and reductions; the world’s most powerful economies came together in a last-minute effort to honor the pledges set forth in Copenhagen, while agreeing to create an important funding mechanism to help developing nations address the climate change crisis,” said Mayor Patrick Hays of North Little Rock, AR. “ICLEI USA applauds the world community for recognizing, for the first time, the crucial roles of local governments in fighting climate change – as local governments are now recognized by delegate nations as “government stakeholders.” ICLEI welcomes this recognition, and simultaneously calls on the international community to follow the lead of local governments who have been on the front lines of climate change for the past 20 years,” added Mayor Hays.

GO ORGANIC

Solar could create 750 Thousand Jobs in US by 2020

Posted on December 7, 2010 by quest

This week at the United Nations convention on Climate Change (COP16) in Cancun, Mexico, SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association Industries – along with EPIA – European Photovoltaic Industry Association and 40 other solar groups around the world) released a report on solar’s potential to fight climate change and create jobs. The report states that solar is already a global success story, but is not yet living up to its full potential.

The report estimates that by 2020, world solar deployment could reach a combined level that reduces carbon pollution equal to removing 110 million cars from the road. Additionally, if the solar deployment goals (that are highlighted in the report) are agreed upon and reached, over one million jobs could be created in the European Union and nearly seven hundred thousand jobs created in the United States.

Solar is fighting climate change and creating jobs now, but we have not even come close to maximizing this free, clean, and abundant resource. If, on a global scale, we continue to ignore solar as a jobs creator and a clean energy alternative, a tremendous opportunity to do the right thing will be lost.

OBSERVE ECO FASHION

PlanetSolar heading to Climate Summit in Cancun

Posted on December 3, 2010 by quest

PlanetSolar the world’s largest solar powered boat continues its a round-the-globe expedition and is now heading for Cancun and the UN World Climate Summit. PlanetSolar is a pioneer for sustainable energy technology on water. The goal of the PlanetSolar team is to be the first to circumnavigate the globe in a “solar” boat, one powered by a silent, pollution-free electrical engine, driven exclusively by solar energy.

With this project the PlanetSolar team intends firstly to show that current technologies aimed at improving energy efficiency are reliable and effective, and secondly to advance scientific research in the field of renewable energy. Reporting on events from the Climate Summit in Cancun Ashley P. Lau, of MarketWatch writes