Global Green News
Going Green moves into mainstream
PODER360.COM. MAY 2009. By Elsie Morales
In the wake of a failing economy, the U.S. looks to new green initiatives to spur societal change.
The past 10 years have seen an upsurge of interest in environmental issues as well as a dramatic shift in economic systems. With new government spending, regulation, and policies supporting investments in energy technologies, environmentalism is no longer just a moral issue or an ethical obligation, but an opportunity to bolster the U.S. economy and increase our collective intelligence. New cutting-edge green initiatives throughout the nation encompass a wide range of efforts, with alternative energy production taking center stage. Rather than rely on oil and gas for energy production, these initiatives represent the latest projects using reliable, efficient methods to create energy from solar rays, wind, water, and steam.
[LATEST GREEN INITIATIVES ACROSS THE U.S.]
[Nationwide]
• American Public Power Association (APPA), the Large Public Power Council (LPPC), and the Alliance to Save Energy have joined together to launch the Clean and Efficient Energy Program (CEEP) for public power, a threeyear, nationwide initiative promoting investment in energy efficiency and clean energy by publicly-owned utilities.
Michigan-based ITC Holdings has proposed what would be the world’s largest clean-energy transmission network, a $12 billion effort to bring wind from the Dakotas, Iowa and Minnesota to population centers reaching from Milwaukee to Chicago to northwest Indiana, calling for 3,000 miles of power lines to handle up to 12,000 megawatts of power.
• Scientists worldwide are conducting research on gas hydrates and how this material might be used as an alternative energy source, building on a landmark study released in November in which USGS researchers estimated that 85.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas couldpotentially be extracted from gas hydrates in Alaska’s North Slope region, enough to heat more than 100 million average homes for more than a decade.
[Arizona]
• Currently under construction in Gila Bend, the Solana electrical plant will have a capacity of 280 megawatts, which would make it the largest solar plant in the world, if in operation today.
[California]
• Solel Solar Systems will supply Pacific Gas & Electric with 553 megawatts of solar thermal energy by 2011, allowing the solar-thermal plant in the Mojave Desert to convert the sun’s heat into steam that powers turbine.
• Southern California Edison and BrightSource Energy from Israel have signed the world’s largest solar energy deal, a project beginning as early as 2013 which will create 1,300 megawatts of energy and power almost a million California homes.
• Today’s geopolitical environment has made CO2-to-fuel research a global affair, and Carbon Sciences is at the forefront with their plans for prototype project in 2009 that the company will use to evaluate its new technology to break apart carbon dioxide in a more energy efficient way.
[Colorado]
• Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy continues to lay the foundation for the nation’s first “smart-grid” city, having installed about 15,000 residential “smart meters” in Boulder thus far and more than 100 miles of cable over power lines for broadband transmission.
[Florida]
• With construction slated to begin as early as next year, Babcock Ranch, the 19,500-home city to be developed by Kitson & Partners just northeast of Fort Myers, will be the first city on earth powered by zero-emission solar energy.
• Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice is pursuing a partnership to create what would be the largest urban solar-energy project in the country, generating an estimated 40 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity and providing power for about 4,800 homes.
[Illinois]
• The 1600-megawatt Prairie State Energy Campus, perhaps the largest coal-fired power plant now under construction, will be capable of serving up to 2.4 million homes in at least nine states as distant as Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania when it is complete and operating in 2012.
[Maine]
• With more wind energy potential than all other New England states combined, Maine is already the largest wind energy producer in the region. With numerous plans for new wind sites, the state could be producing an additional 503 megawatts in the next couple of years.
[Massachusetts]
• Cape Wind is proposing America’s first off shore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, where 130 wind turbines will produce up to 420 megawatts of clean, renewable energy and provide for three quarters of the Cape and Islands electricity needs.
[Minnesota]
• Building upon Xcel Energy’s $1 million project, researchers from the University of Minnesota are using the nation’s first wind-to-battery system as a model for developing techniques to harness wind energy that can be stored for later use.
[New Jersey]
• Earlier this year, city and state officials commemorated the Atlantic City Convention Center, newly powered in part by the largest single-roof solar panel in the nation.
[New York]
• Global Green USA has announced a plan to switch all non-recyclable transfer packaging at the largest food distribution center in the world with recyclable packaging, which could save millions of dollars and reduce more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
• The 50 megawatt project, the largest solar energy project in New York State history, is moving forward on Long Island and will provide enough power to sustain more than 6,500 households and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20,000 tons per year.
