Boulder, CO Residents Get Solar Discounts

New York’s ABC affiliate ran a story on their newscast last night, originally reported in Boulder two weeks ago, about a pilot program run by regional utlity Xcel Energy wherein Boulder residents get rebates from the energy company and top-line Federal tax credits for installing solar electricity systems.  Home solar systems have a street price of $40,000, but Boulder residents who take part in the Xcel program would save $25,000 off of that outlay.  The remaining $15,000 in out-of pocket costs would then presumably be made up in any additional value homeowners would get once they sold their houses, and, over the long term in excess energy that gets credited back into the regional electric grid.

The Boulder Program offers a guidepost for utilities that may be able to use solar programs to improve their grid, and startweaning the American consumer off of fossil-fred electricity.  While $15,000 per house  is still a large outlay, it is about average for most home renovation projects, and has the same net benefit of improved home value, with the added value of rolling back the meter on long, sunny days.

The State of New York offers an incentive program for solar wattage generated back into the grid, rather than for the initial installation, and the incentive is paid not to the homeowner, but to the installer, with the “understanding” that the installer use the incentive payment as a portion of the total cost.  In addition, the State offers a low-interest loan program for homeowners to install green energy systems.   Looking side by side, both programs look indirect, and until demand is high enough to reduce the costs, or an inexpensive option for solar or wind energy is discovered, it’s doubtful that these programs will totally encourage widespread installation of home solar options.

Pete Seeger has a caulk gun, not a hammer

89 year-old folksinger/voice of three generations Pete Seeger has partnered up with author/activist Van Jones to spread the message of caulk to the public.  Jones, both in his book The Green Collar Economy and through his not for profit Green For All, advocates for a new economy of green jobs in underprivileged areas.  One of the ways Jones suggests revitalizing both our economy and environment is through retrofitting houses with new insulation and sealing-  hence the caulk gun.  Jones postulates that 20-30 percent of a homes energy is lost through heat escaping leaky doors and windows.  In taking on these and other home renovation projects, local contrsuction companies can create thousands of green-collar jobs, putting local residents to work and imrpoving the quality of life in their communities.

H/T: Treehugger

Nevada solar plant takes one large step toward widespread solar

First Solar’s new solar power plant in Nevada has been calculated to be the first U.S. solar site to cost less than fossil fuel-firing plants without government subsidies.  This is a major breakthrough in the race for renewable energy in the U.S. , as the largest barrier to solar power, aside from the dearth of energy storage systems, is the high cost of installation.  The difference is in a new type of thin-film solar panel (most panels on the market use crystallized silicon, which requires expensive framing to install).

H/T to Treehugger

Local NFP Provides Tool for Buying Local Food

Local not-for-profit Chew on This, founded by private chef Carlin Greenstein and graphic designer Annie Stranger, have released a “seasonal foods” wheel that allows shoppers to see which fruits and vegetables are “in season” and available locally to New York.  The concept is similar to the “shopping list” board at the Union Square Greenmarket.

While cutting “food miles” is an important concept to help maintain our local agricultural infrastructure, eating a local, seasonal diet is also more beneficial for your health, as local vegetables picked at their peak ripeness have a higher vitamin content than fruits and vegetables picked underripe and ripened “off the tree.”

The wheels can be purchased at Stinky, a cheese market in Cobble Hill, Urban Rustic in Williamsburg, Sustainable NYC in the East Village, and at Blue Hill Farm in Westchester.

hattip: Green Brooklyn

Neil Young turns a gas-guzzler into a Green Dream

In the Cars section in today’s Times is the story of singer/songwriter/friend of Crosby, Stills & Nash Neil Young’s project to turn a 1959 Lincoln Continental into a zero-emissions vehicle as part of Progressive Insurance’s Automotive X Prize, a national competition to create high-milage, low-pollution, production model cars.  The idea is to one-up normal engineering-class competitions that create one-off vehicles and create a competition that demonstrates the long-term use of alternative fuel sources

Young currently drives a converted Mercedes that runs on vegetable oil, and the LincVolt, as the re-purposed Lincoln is called,  will run on a combination of natural gas and electric batteries, capable of running 1,000 miles to the tank, and uses a smaller tank than most  natural gas vehicles.

The project is intriguing because it takes a notorious gas-guzzler, and re-uses it to demonstrate the capabilities of existing technologies– the car’s engine is a rotary motor, rather than classic piston-powered internal comustion engine;  as one member of Young’s team claims, “if we can go this with such a heavy car [the Lincoln is 5,000 pounds], imagine what we can do with a smaller car.”

UPDATE: InformationWeek recaps an appearance Young made with the LincVolt at a conference hosted by tech-Glengarry company SalesForce.  The article better describes the hybrid-drive system.

Google gets into the Carbon Calculator Game

Hattip to Cody of the M Booth FWD team for this one.

Google has launched a Halloween-themed five-step energy saver calculator that compares spots of energy waste to ghosts, vampires, demons, monsters and zombies.  Obviously, with only five areas of savings, it’s nowhere near comprehensive.  It does, however, illustrate how small steps can lead to big change, and will hopefully lead people to look into other ways to cut both their energy costs and carbon emissions.

WSJ Offers advice for cutting power use

Falling under that first R, the Journal ran an article in yesterday’s “Personal Journal” section with a bunch of good advice for cutting power use in the home.  It’s pretty standard; seal the house, switch the bulbs, unplug idle devices, and update the appliances; but always worth the reminder.

Thinking about Footprint, in extremis

The New York Times has run a series of articles over the past few days about smaller things;  the real eyecatcher is yesterday’s article about tiny houses.  Specifically, the article focuses on a small movement of people who are building or purchasing prefab houses that run between 50 and 1,000 square feet.  While most families would find this impractical, it does raise the question of “do you really need all of this space?”  When counterbalanced with the McMansion Movement, it’s an interesting exercise in evaluating just how much of a footprint you need to cast.

If nothing else, the $8 energy bill of one of the folks quoted is pretty compelling.

Phillipe Starck to mass-market personal-use wind turbine

Hattip to Inhabitat and Treehugger for this story:

Famous housewares/furniture designer Phillipe Starck (he of the “cheap chic” Target line) has unveiled a miniature wind turbine that can be used to generate home power.  The turbine, which will supposedly be available in September, purports to provide somewhere between 20-60 % of the energy needed to power the average home.

While the official specs have yet to be released, it appears, from the scale in the images, to be about the size of the average television set, which means it might be useful here in NYC.  The proposed price point, and this is just for the turbine, not for any additional power storage/wiring necessities, is around $600 US.

Grain-of-salt time:  with no official specs available, there’s nothing to say that this is a useful, sustainable product.  Also, the all-plastic blade design is a worry, as there may be more negative impact from the production of the windmill than just simply doing a better job conserving power on your existing fossil fuel supply, or even requesting wind power through ConEd.  Finally, the other parts required (power inverter, grid relay to pump overflow back into the grid, battery systems for home storage, etc.) to install a home wind system seem to be not included in the $600 price point, and would put the seemingly cheap solution out of reach for most home budgets.  However, the fact that a well-renowned, widely known designer like Starck is even remotely interested in solving the problem of cheap, fossil-free home electricity is promising, if for no other reason than the attention his product will bring to the idea.

The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”

Last October, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a floating island of refuse between California and Hawaii. Recent estimates put the patch at twice the size of Texas, with 80 percent of the content a) plastic and b) originating on land.