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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on -
NEW SOLAR FARM
CARY, N.C., Dec 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Sustainability has been a key focus in 2008 at SAS, the leader in business analytics. As the year draws to a close, the company celebrates a green milestone: its on-campus solar farm is now live and providing power to the Progress Energy utility grid. The solar farm began generating power the week of Dec. 15.
"In less than a year this plan went from idea to reality," said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. "I hope people will learn from our experience that sustainable energy is within reach and makes bottom-line business sense."
"This is an important milestone for our state," said Lloyd Yates, CEO and President of Progress Energy Carolinas, which will purchase the energy produced by the solar array. "Solar power will become a more important part of the diverse energy mix we use to meet our customers' needs, and we look forward to bringing much more renewable generation online in the months and years to come."
Covering five acres, the 1-megawatt photovoltaic (PV) solar array was designed by SunPower Corporation and is estimated to generate 1.7 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1,600 tons annually. This is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption of more than 167,000 gallons of gasoline.
About SAS
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. With innovative business applications supported by an enterprise intelligence platform, SAS helps customers at 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW(R).
SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright (C) 2008 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.
SOURCE: SAS
SAS
Dave Thomas, 919-531-1447; Dave.Thomas@sas.com
Visit the SAS Press Center
www.sas.com/presscenter
Copyright Business Wire 2008
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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2:01 pm, December 17, 2008
State to host ‘green jobs’ conference in May
By Amy Lane
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The state is planning a daylong “green jobs” conference in May that will focus on workforce and economic development.
The “Green Today, Jobs Tomorrow” conference May 11 in Lansing, organized by the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth, will bring together representatives from business, education and training, labor, environmental, and community- and faith-based organizations, as well as policy advocates.
As Crain’s Detroit Business first reported Sept. 1, the conference is part of the state’s $6 million “Green Jobs Initiative” that is focusing on jobs in emerging sectors that include alternative energy and energy efficiency, green building construction, and agriculture and natural resource conservation.
The state effort includes identifying sectors in need of workers and the training necessary to fill jobs.
Initial conference information and signup for e-mail updates is available at www.michigan.gov/greenjobsconference. Registration materials will be posted in early 2009.
“We will be showcasing Michigan as a state that is embracing the green economy in a number of innovative ways by engaging partners and stakeholders to share information about the existing and emerging green jobs economy in Michigan,” said DLEG Director Stanley “Skip” Pruss, in a news release.
© 2007 Crain Communications Inc.
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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Ethanol Industry Provides Green Jobs Input
Posted by Cindy Zimmerman
At the request of the Obama administration transition team, the Renewable Fuels Association last week submitted discussion ideas for an economic stimulus package partially designed to create green jobs and spur the green economy.
RFAAccording to a statement from RFA, “Some have misconstrued this communication as a request for federal assistance or a bailout. To the contrary, the RFA recognizes that by stimulating increased production, innovation, and investment in new technologies and cellulosic feedstocks, a revitalized renewable fuels industry can help bail out the flagging US economy and lessen America’s dependence on foreign oil.”
RFA says the ethanol industry has helped support the creation of more than 238,000 “green” jobs last year alone as well as helping to revive struggling rural economies.
Organization representatives say they will continue to have discussions with the Obama team on how ethanol fits into a green stimulus package. “America’s ethanol producers share the vision of President-elect Obama of a domestic industry that is innovating to include ethanol production from a wide array of materials including switchgrass, wood chips, and municipal solid waste. That vision can only become a reality if today’s ethanol technologies and producers are successful.”
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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Article published Dec 17, 2008
Green jobs? We know about it
by Tracy Warner
Editorial Page Editor, The World
While temperatures move toward zero and we set records for electricity consumption, here in the Northwest it is now good to hope that the wind blows. Forget wind chill, we need electricity.
Too bad our winters aren’t as blustery as we would like. Wind power capacity in the region is now, by varying estimates, at about 1,500 megawatts and rapidly moving to 2,000. Surveys of utility intentions show another to 4,700 megawatts could be added in as little as five years.
This, on paper at least, is not insignificant. The midwinter power load in the region is pushing 25,000 average megawatts, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. So, wind power could be supplying a fair share of the load before long and about 12 percent of the region’s generating capcity, when the wind blows. This is happening faster than anyone expected.
There is a slight difference between the functional reality and the claims made for this development’s benefits. Wind power still has to be subsidized to be economical to produce, as the clamoring for federal tax breaks by wind power producers suggests. And laws in Washington and Oregon require utilities soon to have a percentage of their power produced from “renewables” other than hydroelectricity, and wind is the only practical source now available. So some of this expansion if not voluntary. And, wind “capacity” is not the same as the power actually produced. Because wind is fickle, all these projects produce at their rated maximum only a third, or maybe a quarter of the time. And that burst can come when nobody needs it — demand for electricity fluctuates hour by hour, month by month, and not as the wind blows. So, 1,000 megawatts of wind isn’t equal to 1,000 megawatts from a conventional power source, like a dam or a nuclear plant that can make power more or less when you need it.
Build a wind farm way, way out in Eastern Washington and suddenly you need to build a very expensive power line to get the product to where the customers use it. The Bonneville Power Administration wants to build 600 miles of new power lines to add to the 15,000 it owns, mainly to get wind power to the Interstate 5 corridor. This will cost about $1.5 billion. It needs new credit to raise this money and so an upgrade to the Northwest power grid may be financed with help from the economic stimulus package to emerge from Congress and the Obama administration next year.
Already fantastic claims are being made for this development. It would “help create 50,000 jobs” by some estimates relayed by McClatchy New Service. A Seattle Web site said it “would be a project similar in scope to the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s.”
This power grid upgrade is necessary and good and probably overdue, but we should relax on the miracle claims. For one, Grand Coulee not only provided thousands of jobs in a time when unemployment was above 25 percent, to this day it can produce 6,800 megawatts of power, a huge share of the regional load, at a price that, relative to wind, is almost microscopic. It produces annually almost $1 billion in power without a breath of greenhouse gas, stores huge amounts of energy in its reservoir for when we need it and water for salmon when they need it, provides irrigation for crops with annual values pushing $700 million, feeds the multitudes and supports tens of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly. It was a pretty good producer of “green jobs” before the term became chic. A lot of people around here can attest to that.
Stringing power lines to fickle, subsidized windmills will be a good project, but a dubious producer of jobs. Like most government efforts, you have to take money from something else to put it there. And running lines at $1.5 million a mile to a power source that hits its capacity on one day out of three is anything but efficient.
So let’s please not belittle Grand Coulee by comparing it to this effort. Green jobs are great. We have personal experience with that. But they don’t blow in so easily.
Tracy Warner’s column appears Tuesday through Friday. He can be reached at warner@wenworld.com or 665-1163.
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Permalink Reply by Fred Mars on -
It would be much less expensive to place small wind turbines along the I-5 corridor. In addition to supplying electric for lighting and information/warning displays, it can also provide power to rest areas, where charging stations can be installed to recharge electric vehicles.
This is a part of the plan that I was speaking of in other posts. You can also supplement the wind with solar and with battery/capacitor storage to hold energy when it is not being used. My idea incorporates a store and forward scheme, so that power produced is moved along (intelligently) to where it is demanded. Energy produced locally, is used locally, and surplus is "walked" down the grid to draw from when it it is needed.
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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By Laura Barron, NBC17, 4 weeks, 1 day ago
DURHAM, N.C. -
With the struggling economy a new study shows North Carolina could get ahead of the curve by investing in "green collar jobs."
A breakdown of the Duke University study pinpoints five areas of growth for North Carolina. They are LED lighting, high-performance windows, auxiliary power units for long-haul trucks, solar power and soil systems for treating hog waste.
Executive Vice President of CREE, John Palmour, said innovation and money-saving products are helping his company light the path to going green.
"It's kind of like you saw with Edison and the light bulb 100 years ago; we'd like to think we're in that same position here 100 years later," Palmour said.
CREE is noted in Duke's study for its LED lights. Raleigh's convention center and the "Bird's Nest" in Beijing are just two of the company's big projects. It also makes LED lights for lighting in corporations, streetlights and even homes. The lights are manufactured in Durham, and in the past six years, the company has quadrupled its workforce to 3,200 worldwide.
"As we've grown here that's definitely trickled down to other industries, and we'll continue to grow," Palmour said.
Marcy Lowe, a Duke University researcher named in the study "Manufacturing Climate Solutions: Carbon-Reducing Technologies and U.S. Jobs, said CREE is one example of how North Carolina can get ahead in the green sector.
"We simply can't out-cheap China, but we can certainly out-innovate them," Lowe said.
Lowe said green jobs can be high-tech or hard hat, but she sees big opportunity in a system that manages hog waste.
"It puts North Carolina in a leadership position where we could actually be developing a whole new market in a sector where no good alternative has existed so far," Lowe said.
Bottom line, Lowe believes the study shows North Carolina has the resources to complete in the global race for green jobs.
"I think it's very critical because the point is that if we don't take the lead and continue to innovate than others will," Lowe said.
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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December 16, 2008
Hard Task for New Team on Energy and Climate
By JOHN M. BRODER and ANDREW C. REVKIN
WASHINGTON — The team President-elect Barack Obama introduced on Monday to carry out his energy and environmental policies faces a host of political, economic, diplomatic and scientific challenges that could impede his plans to address global warming and America’s growing dependence on dirty and uncertain sources of energy.
Acknowledging that a succession of presidents and Congresses had failed to make much progress on the issues, Mr. Obama vowed to press ahead despite the faltering economy and suggested that he would invest his political capital in trying to break logjams.
“This time must be different,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Chicago. “This will be a leading priority of my presidency and a defining test of our time. We cannot accept complacency, nor accept any more broken promises.”
Shortly after Mr. Obama spoke, transition officials confirmed that he would select Senator Ken Salazar, a first-term Democrat from Colorado, as interior secretary. Mr. Salazar’s appointment will complete the team of environmental and energy officials in the new administration.
The most pressing environmental issue for the incoming team will almost certainly be settling on an effective and politically tenable approach to the intertwined issues of energy security and global warming.
The point person for these issues will be Carol M. Browner, who was named on Monday to the new position of White House coordinator for energy and climate. Ms. Browner, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton, will oversee two former aides, Lisa P. Jackson, who was selected as the new agency administrator, and Nancy Sutley, who will be the chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Joining the group will be Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics whom Mr. Obama designated to lead the Energy Department.
Mr. Salazar, a former director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and state attorney general, is a farmer and rancher whose family has lived in Colorado for five generations. He is known as a staunch conservationist and an opponent of developing oil shale on public lands.
His appointment will leave a Democratic vacancy in the Senate. Colorado, which voted for Mr. Obama 53 percent to 45 percent, has a Democratic governor, Bill Ritter, who will name a replacement to complete the final two years of Mr. Salazar’s term. Mr. Salazar’s brother John, a congressman, is among potential appointees to fill the Senate seat.
The intense ideological and regional rivalries that have stalled climate change legislation in Congress for years have not suddenly melted away. And even though Mr. Obama promises to give energy legislation a high priority, he first must stabilize an economy that is shedding jobs by the hundreds of thousands each month.
The new team faces political urgency to deliver on promises made by Mr. Obama on the campaign trail. One was his pledge to use a cap-and-trade bill for curbing heat-trapping gases as both the means of shifting investments away from energy sources that cause emissions of such gases and also as the source of the $15 billion a year he promised to invest in advanced energy technology. That figure may be dwarfed by spending on stimulus programs, including so-called green projects like building wind farms and making buildings more energy efficient.
Previous efforts to move a comprehensive climate bill through Congress stalled even without the deepening recession the nation confronts today, said Rafe Pomerance, a negotiator in the Clinton administration on international climate agreements and the president of Clean Air-Cool Planet, a Washington nonprofit group.
Mr. Pomerance said the challenge would be to devise a scientifically rigorous bill that would satisfy lawmakers who fear the costs.
Left unclear on Monday was how the new president’s advisers intend to use the levers of government to get to the “new energy economy” Mr. Obama described. Also uncertain was what relationship they would forge with his powerful economic advisers.
“In policy terms, I think there are big questions about what priority will be given to direct public infrastructure spending versus tax-based incentives versus environmental markets versus direct regulation,” said Paul Bledsoe of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan advisory group. “There is still a very profound debate on all of that.”
The diplomatic tension is driven by the steps required to work toward a new global climate treaty, which the United States and nearly all other nations have committed to completing by December 2009. The last round of talks ended last weekend in Poland with few signs of progress on the main goal, limiting emissions of heat-trapping gases without hampering economic development.
It is widely felt that if the United States does not demonstrate concrete domestic steps to curb its emissions from burning fossil fuels, fast-growing developing countries will continue to balk at taking on obligations to cut their emissions. And while Mr. Obama will enjoy a larger Democratic majority than Mr. Clinton did in his two terms, the Senate has long made such steps a prerequisite for its required consent to any climate treaty.
The scientific urgency comes from the unanticipated recent growth in emissions of carbon dioxide in China, India and other countries with fast-expanding economies. This heat-trapping gas is the biggest concern because its long life, once the gas is released, causes it to build in the atmosphere, something like unpaid credit-card debt, as long as reductions are not made.
Additional pressure comes from growing recognition that market forces alone are unlikely to drive the spread of nonpolluting energy technologies fast enough to matter where all the growth in energy use is at its peak, in the rapidly growing countries of Asia and Latin America.
Nathan Lewis, who leads a team at Caltech pursuing ways to greatly improve solar energy technologies, said the appointment of Dr. Chu as energy secretary sent a strong signal that Mr. Obama understood that any program on climate-friendly energy had to have three prongs: increasing efficiency, moving existing nonpolluting energy technologies more quickly into the market, and advancing on the frontiers of energy science in search of radical breakthroughs.
“Energy efficiency cannot be seen as Job 1 and the other stuff Job 2,” Dr. Lewis said. “You’ve got to do them all as Job 1 because they all have to work.”
Dr. Chu has spoken of using coal to generate electricity as an environmental “nightmare,” but he acknowledges that the nation lacks the technology to replace it or clean it up in the near term. Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for utilities, said that any solution to the climate problem must address these costs and provide consumers and electricity producers time to adjust.
“There will be major costs,” Mr. Kuhn said. “It’s a question of trying to mitigate the costs as much as possible.”
John M. Broder reported from Washington, and Andrew C. Revkin from New York.
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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Energy plans advance
By BRENDAN RILEY Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 12/16/2008 04:16:44 PM PST
CARSON CITY, Nev.—Maps showing vast stretches of Nevada that would eventually be alternative energy generating sites linked to power transmission lines were outlined Tuesday by a special commission formed by Gov. Jim Gibbons.
The Nevada Renewable Energy Transmission Access Advisory Committee displayed the maps at a meeting held on the same day that Democratic state leaders met with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Las Vegas, to discuss renewable energy.
The Republican governor said his advisory committee spent 18 months developing the maps which show how geothermal, wind and solar energy can be generated and linked to a power grid serving Nevada and other states.
"We're rolling out a comprehensive plan to utilize renewable resources within the state and for export to markets outside Nevada," Gibbons said, adding, "This puts Nevada about a year ahead of every other state interesting in doing similar things."
"Nevada can truly become energy-independent with this plan, and all we have to do now is to modernize our electrical grid infrastructure—and we're on our way to having a completely new legacy for the state," the governor said.
The advisory committee maps show solar power sites covering broad swaths of southern Nevada, and wind and geothermal energy areas in western, central and eastern parts of the state. It's estimated that the areas could generate tens of thousands of kilowatt hours of power.
The first phase
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of the transmission lines for the areas already is in the works. The state Public Utilities Commission voted earlier this month to approve the Southwest Intertie Project, which would run more than 200 miles from the Ely area to near Las Vegas. That project should be completed by 2011.
NV Energy wants to build a new coal-fired power plant near Ely. Sen. Reid has opposed the coal-fired plant, although Gibbons said it's "the funding mechanism for these power lines. It's a bridge to getting the line and meeting near-term energy needs."
Eventually, the line would be extended north from the Ely area to Idaho. Other lines would extend into Utah and California. Construction of the lines would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take decades to complete.
Reid, an outspoken advocate of alternative energy, said he was unaware that his group's meeting in Las Vegas was being held while the governor's committee was in session. He said his group was picking up on work that began in August. Tuesday's session was closed to the media.
"I really don't know what the governor has done about renewable energy. I look forward to working with him," Reid said.
Among the items discussed in Las Vegas was the Democrat-controlled Assembly's renewable energy agenda. Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said the caucus plans to introduce four major bills next session, including one setting up a renewable energy commission.
The commission would oversee planning and financing of a modern transmission grid. The panel would consist of appointed officials who would work with the state treasurer and have the authority to issue bonds to finance the project.
Also being proposed are plans to let homeowners rent or lease solar panels from a renewable energy company that isn't a public utility; let local governments set up loan programs so that homeowners can finance renewable energy upgrades; and require government agencies to set deadlines for meeting energy efficiency standards.
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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Wednesday, December 17, 2008, 3:55pm CST
Wind farm deal to boost CPS Energy’s renewable-energy profile
San Antonio Business Journal
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CPS Energy has signed a 15-year agreement to purchase power from the new Papalote Creek wind farm, located in San Patricio County east of Corpus Christi.
The wind farm, owned by E.ON Climate & Renewables (EC&R) North America, will provide CPS with 115.5 megawatts of electricity and associated renewable energy credits. The project is still under construction and is expected to come online in the fall of 2009.
“CPS Energy is proud to rank No. 1 in the amount of wind energy capacity among the nation’s municipally owned utilities,” says Milton Lee, CPS Energy general manager and CEO. “Additional wind-generated electricity from Papalote Creek is another indicator of our aggressive efforts to add to our already substantial renewable energy capacity.”
The additional energy from the wind farm will boost CPS Energy’s total renewable energy capacity to 703.7 megawatts and will move the company closer to achieving its goal of generating capacity from renewable resources equivalent to 20 percent of customers’ peak electric demand by 2020.
CPS Energy, the nation’s largest municipally owned energy company, serves more than 690,000 electric customers and almost 320,000 natural gas customers in and around San Antonio.
All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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State gets $4M to further construction of wind farms
Thursday, December 18, 2008
BY TOM JOHNSON
Star-Ledger Staff
The state yesterday awarded three $4 million grants to developers of wind farms, a step that could pave the way for construction of wind farms off the Jersey coast within four years.
The grants from the state Board of Public Utilities will be used to conduct environmental studies of the effect of proposed wind farms on marine and bird life and wind quality at the Jersey Shore, which the Corzine administration wants done before it approves the building of 1,000 megawatts of wind capacity by 2012.
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In October, the state approved the first offshore wind farm when it gave approval to the Garden State Offshore Energy project, a joint venture between PSEG Renewable Generation and Deepwater Wind, a Hoboken company. They plan to build 96 turbines about 20 miles off Avalon that would produce 347 megawatts of electricity. One megawatt is enough to power about 800 homes.
The other two developers to win grants were Bluewater Wind, which wants to build a 348-megawatt wind farm 16 miles off the coast of Cape May and Ocean counties and Fishermen's Energy of New Jersey, a consortium of East Coast fishing companies that wants to build a 350-meagawatt facility between 3 and 10 miles off the coast of Atlantic City.
The environmental studies will involve about two years of data collection, including looking at seasonal wind patterns and other issues to determine if the projects are feasible.
The projects are considered crucial to the state's goal of increasing the use of renewable energy in New Jersey by the year 2020.
Tom Johnson may be reached at tjohnson@starledger.com.
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Permalink Reply by Michael, Houston on
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Michigan poised to see its first wind turbine manufacturer open
Posted by sveng December 17, 2008 15:56PM
Michigan is poised to see the first wind turbine original equipment manufacturer open its doors since passage of a renewable energy mandate earlier this year after state officials granted a $7.3 million tax incentive to a startup company.
Global Wind Systems Inc. won the incentive from the Michigan Economic Development Authority earlier this week. It plans to invest $32.3 million to open its first production facility in Novi, where it told officials it plans to employ 356 workers within five years.
Not much is publicly known about the company, its background or how it is being financed. I left a message for CEO Chris Long on Wednesday, and the woman who answered the phone said the business is operating out of Novi. The company told the MEDC it had no employees thus far.
The company hasn't yet signed a lease but is looking at an existing manufacturing facility on 12 Mile Road, said Ara Topouzian, Novi's economic development manager.
According to state records, the company has developed a utility-scale, 1.5-megawatt wind turbine generation system. It plans to source 100 percent of its components from U.S.-based manufacturers, with a specific focus on suppliers in Michigan and other Great Lakes states.
That would mark a significant achievement if it comes to pass. The wind turbine market is dominated mostly by European-based OEMs such as Vestas and Siemens that often have established supply chains, and Michigan suppliers reeling from declining automotive production are scrambling to diversify into new markets such as renewable energy components.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm in September signed an energy package that requires the state to obtain 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015. More than half the states now have so-called renewable portfolio standards enacted into law.
Global Wind Systems told the MEDC it anticipates initially selling 39 units per year at a per-unit price of $2.4 million, and ramping up production in the second year. It is targeting $500 million in three-year booked sales.
Stay tuned to this one.
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