Friday, November 30, 2012

Shift in Energy Balance Includes Renewables, Efficiency


Editors note: when I read this, and then watched the videos from the WEO launch (included for your viewing pleasure below) it took all my self control to not jump out of my chair and scream "BOOYEAH".  And yes, I even thought of calling some EE non-believers out there and booyeah-ing them, however I'm a lady first and foremost, so I kept my glee to myself. 

Now, more from Dee...

All of us here at the SJVCEO have been preaching to anyone who will listen about the power of energy conservation. Well, now we can back that claim up with some pretty substantial clout. The International Energy Agency (IEA) released the 2012 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) on November 12th. In that report the IEA states that North America leads the shift in global energy balance. That shift includes a movement to renewable energy and energy efficiency that will have a major impact on global energy and climate trends. North America is at the forefront of a sweeping transformation in oil and gas production that will affect all regions of the world, yet the potential also exists for a similarly transformative shift in global energy efficiency. According to the WEO, we can achieve energy savings equal to nearly a fifth of global demand in 2010. In other words, energy efficiency is just as important as unconstrained energy supply, and increased action on efficiency can serve as a unifying energy policy that brings multiple benefits.

The report calls out six areas that need to be addressed in order to make the “efficient World Scenario,” a scenario that shows what energy efficiency improvements can be achieved simply by adopting measures that are justified in economic terms. The steps include making energy efficiency clearly visible along with its economic gains, as well as including efficiency concerns into decision making in government, industry, and society. The IEA report urges policy leaders to deploy a mix of regulations to discourage the least energy efficient approaches, while incentivizing the most energy efficient actions.

The report also projects that renewable energy sources could become the world's second-largest source of power generation by 2015, closing in on coal as the primary source by 2035. The projection noted that this is based on continued subsidies, which amounted to $88 billion in 2011.

--Dee Cox







photo credit: International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2012, http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/weo-2012/

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Believe it or not: setting sail on solar

So, believe it or not, this isn't the first post on sailing and solar; back in February my brother-in-law shared how he and my sister keep the Play Actor green on the big blue (you can link to their blog here).  However, I think this tech is beyond what Bud has going on their Baba 35!

Japanese tech company, Eco Marine Power is working on and experimenting with EnergySail which would be a renewable energy driven sail that could be fitted to traditional fuel powered vessels.  Anything from large carriers to patrol ships could one day be powered by the sun!  

The device is being tested in a lab in Osaka with focus on control systems and command interface testing.  EnergySail could see open seas as early as 2013.

Original CNET story here.

Photo credit: Eco Marine Power

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Wellness Wednesday: Making kids and buildings better


14 years ago, as a junior in high school (I was in 8th grade), my brother was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasized to his lungs. You would never believe by looking at him now, healthy as can be, that he was once sick as a dog.  For the majority of his chemotherapy, surgeries, and appointments he was treated at the old location of Children’s Hospital Central California in Fresno (then known as Valley Children’s Hospital). While the staff and care was phenomenal, I remember the facility being dark and scary! I can’t imagine how a sick child would have felt being wheeled through the dungeon-like hallways. Our family was ecstatic when in August of 1998 the hospital started the move to the new facility in Madera right off the Highway 41. Kyle was through with treatment at this point but still had to make frequent visits to the hospital for routine check-ups. The place was (and still is) gorgeous.

Children’s Hospital Central California was recently awarded the Energy Star certification for energy efficiency. The hospital utilizes variable speed drives, LED technology, environmental controls, and an employeeawareness campaign to help cut back on energy use. Since 2005 the hospital has reduced its carbon footprint by 3,436 metric tons of carbon dioxide which is equivalent to taking 674 cars off the road. This isn’t the first award for the hospital. Children’s Hospital won the California Flex Your Power award in 2005 and in 2007 the American Society for Healthcare Engineering recognized the hospital for a 15 percent decrease in energy intensity.

Well done, Children’s Hospital. And, thank you.

--Maureen Hoff
Kyle and Amanda on their wedding day - July 7, 2012 – Kauai, Hawaii
Photo credit: http://lennon.csufresno.edu/~anyanaz/index1.htm
Photo credit: Maureen Hoff

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Believe it or not: world's longest turbine blade


When Dee saw this headline she was so impressed she whipped out a quick BION post, which means I have Thursday off!  Thanks, Dee! 
Siemens, a manufacturer out of Germany, has found a reason to build this incredibly large off-shore wind turbine, and has plans to build a total of 300. This reminds me of something my brothers would have enjoyed working on as kids. The blades on these puppies are incredibly large (75 meters) that’s equivalent to just over 246 feet. 
Hummm, to put this into prospective let’s just say the blades are about the same size of 2 and a half football fields, 1 and a half Olympic size swimming pools or almost three times the height (at its highest point) of the Golden Gate bridge. Now, double that for a whopping 154 meter span but still weights less than more typically produced blades by using lightweight materials during construction. The entire blade is made of a single piece of “glass fiber-reinforced epoxy resin and balsa wood”. Balsa wood? Yes, that’s right, balsa wood.
Not knowing my wood that well, I had to look up what the heck balsa wood was and if it was a renewable resource. Come to find out it is native to southern Brazil and northern to southern Mexico, but is found in other countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea. The best part is that it is a pioneer plant (or as my dad would have said, it’s a volunteer), plants itself in clearings in forests, wither man made or where trees have fallen, or in abandoned agricultural fields. It grows extremely rapidly which explains the lightness of the wood, lower density even than cork, and about 60 percent of the world’s supply comes from balsa plantations that grow it in densely packed patches and harvested after 6-10 years.
Okay, back on track, besides it being lightweight in relation to its size the construction processes also makes the wind turbine extremely strong. A really great asset to have when they will be hit with the energy of about 200-tons of air per second out in the sea!
According to Siemens the tips of the 75 meter long blades will be able to move at up to 80 meters per second or 2.16 mph. So, my mind starts to wonder, why so big? The answer is actually simple. As the turbine blades get longer the amount of electricity they produce increases very rapidly. Because offshore wind projects are quite expensive it makes sense to build a few big wind turbines than lots of small ones.


Photo credits:

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Wellness Wednesday: BFFs & LEDs

Wellness Wednesday has surprisingly been a challenge for me. I thought it would be easy to make the link between personal wellness and happenings in the clean energy world because, to me, the two are so closely tied together; however, it seems that it is not a widely publicized topic. Good and bad. Good because I feel like we can pave the way in exploring this topic and bad because it requires that extra bit of research on my end! With that being said, I encourage you to send any ‘Wellness Wednesday’ ideas to me at mhoff@pesc.com - I want to make sure I am addressing what interests our readers! In the meantime, you will have to hear a lot about my personal life adventure of buying and greening my home.
Meet my BFF, IKEA. She’s modern. She’s hip. Yep, she’s my Best Frugal Find and she’s into energy efficiency. It’s like we were meant to be. I just wish she lived a tad bit closer but thank goodness for the Internet because we are able to keep in touch!

Okay, yes. I have lost my mind but to be fair I am drafting this blog on a misty, October Friday when all I can think about is organic hot chocolate, curling up next to the fireplace, and listening to Celine Dion (note to editor: do not remove this Celine reference - I like her and I am not ashamed). Note from editor: I am ashamed for you. 

Back to IKEA.  A recent article let me know that my BFF has a goal to sell only LED lamps and bulbs by 2016. Like Oprah, she really wants people to live their best life and feels that saving energy, slicing utility bills, and cutting carbon emissions are a big piece of that pie. IKEA as a company is strongly committed to being a leader when it comes to energy efficiency – check out the page on Climate Change. I too like to lead by example and feel that as a new home owner it is important to do my part in making my space energy efficient to not only put money back in my pocket but to protect our environment for generations to come.

‘If all IKEA customers around the world took out one traditional light bulb and replaced it with a new LED bulb that would save enough energy to power up a city with one million people.’ – James Futcher, IKEA Product Developer


Energy efficiency is easy and can be cheap thanks to no-cost, low-cost fixes and BFFs like IKEA. Just one bulb per household?! Come on, I think we can all do better than that. I know I plan to. Besides cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions, LEDs also cut down on exposure to toxic substances because they are mercury free, unlike traditional incandescent or compact fluorescent bulbs. Sure LEDs still cost more upfront, but thanks to a long life and companies like IKEA LEDs will most definitely save you in the long run.


LED
CFL
Incandescent
Light bulb projected lifespan
50,000 hours
10,000 hours
1,200 hours
Watts per bulb (equiv. 60 watts)
10
14
60
Cost per bulb
$35.95
$3.95
$1.25
KWh of electricity used over 
50,000 hours
300 500
700
3000
Cost of electricity (@ 0.10per KWh)
$50
$70
$300
Bulbs needed for 50k hours of use
1
5
42
Equivalent 50k hours bulb expense
$35.95
$19.75
$52.50
Total cost for 50k hours
$85.75
$89.75
$352.50

Energy Savings over 50,000 hours, assuming 25 bulbs per household:
Total cost for 25 bulbs
$2143.75
$2243.75
$8812.50
Savings to household by switching 
from incandescents
$6668.75
$6568.75
0


Healthy wallet, healthy home, healthy planet - just another win on this Wellness Wednesday.

photo credit: slimmer_jimmer via photopin cc

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Clean Energy in the San Joaquin Valley: where are the jobs?


This event has been postponed to December 14th. Same time, same place.  For more information contact Courtney Kalashian @ (877) 748-0841 or ckalashian@pesc.com

I may have mentioned in passing our project working with community colleges in the San Joaquin Valley--heck, even Huffington Post is talking about it--but I've not taken the time to really explain what we're doing and why we're doing it. Well, my apologies and please, allow me to tell you a bit about this thing we like to call "C6".

In May 2012 the SJVCEO began a partnership with the Central California Community Colleges Committed to Change (C6) consortium under a Department of Labor grant to redesign how community college students are trained to enter the clean energy workforce.  Our role is to convene educators with industry leaders to jointly design skills training based on real life needs. 

Our purpose is to serve as a convener of employers, industry experts and educators to look at Alternative/Clean Energy (ACE) education in a holistic manner. For the past six months we have been meeting with employers and asking what they want in their future employees.  We've meet with educators and asked what they're doing, and how they'd like to change it.  We have researched existing sources of curriculum, then taken it back to the employers and educators and asked how can we make this more applicable for students in Central California. 

But that wasn't enough. 


Maureen, Dee and I found ourselves asking, 'where are all these newly trained students going to go?' and we didn't have a concrete answer and with that a workshop was born! (PS--you're invited!)


  
Our one-day workshop will serve as a true “work” shop in which we will attempt to geographically determine where the jobs are now, where projects are planned, and what the actual employment opportunities are in our eight county region.  At the end of the day we want to have enough data to create an online, interactive GIS based map that represents what, where and when clean energy jobs are available in the San Joaquin Valley, what training and certifications are needed at each site, and where training is available. 

The ideal attendee for the event is a person familiar with the business plans of you organization or involved in planning and permitting for clean energy projects—where contracts will be, number of jobs, length of contract, training and certification needed.  We want to take a broad view  on clean energy: efficiency, solar, wind, water, biofuels, weatherization, green building, and more! Please mark your calendars and join us:

Thursday, November 15, 2012
9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Small Business Development Center Regional Network in partnership with the US Small Business Administration
550 East Shaw Avenue, Suite 100
Fresno, CA  93710-7702

Please RSVP to ckalashian@pesc.com and please forward this to those you think would benefit from participating.

If you have questions or would like more information on this event please contact Courtney Kalashian, (877) 748-0841 or ckalashian@pesc.com.  
























photo credit: SenatorMarkUdall via photopin cc

Happy Election Day!



Find your voting location and hours here: https://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/vote

photo credit: Sterin via photopin cc

Original image from Obey, www.obeygiant.com

Monday, November 5, 2012

Money Monday: Smart Grid Funding


The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on October 11 announced funding to modernize and improve the efficiency of rural electric generation and transmission systems. The announcement includes additional loan support of $134 million in Smart Grid technologies in 16 states. The selected projects are located in Alabama, California, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. 

In September, the USDA reportedthat it had met its goal to finance $250 million in Smart Grid technologies in fiscal year 2012.

USDA also announced nearly $264 million in loans to partially finance wood-burning plants in Colorado, Hawaii, and Texas that are expected to generate 69 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Additionally, $14,565,000 was announced to finance the construction of a 5.5 MW solar-powered generating facility in Maryland.

In California, Kirkwood Meadows Public Utility District received $50,000,000 to build or improve 40 miles of lines for distribution and transmission, and to make other improvements to their aging system.  

To learn more link to the USDA press release here












photo credit: arbyreed via photopin cc

Photo credit: KMPUD.com

The State of the Blog: Blog-cation?


Ha! We wish!  Sadly our blog-cation (vacation from the blog) had nothing to do with sandy beaches or warm water or boat drinks (although I have been listening to my fair share of Jimmy Buffett, but that's totally normal).

No, our blog-cation was a result of two of us being taken down by sinus colds and the third's child being ill.

Rest assured, we are back! Dee's Money Monday post will be out soon, and the rest of week will be on the schedule be promised in our first State of the Blog.  Thank you for being patient, and for staying with us for the last two weeks while we were checked out--I promise, no more blog-cations and plenty of great new content--and if I can make it work, more Lionel Richie videos. Actually, I think this is as good an opportunity as any...





photo credit: esther** via photopin cc