Interesting technical talk from the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory Cyrus Wadia walks you through the economics and technology of moving from current high cost silicon photo voltaics to new and promising innovations in nanotechnolgy.
[ A trifle annoying that his laser pointer to the charts is not visible to us, as it is to his live audience.]
The Union of Concerned Scientists is a wonderful organization for many reasons. They have taken a lead role in articulating and educating us all about the dangers of nuclear energy, the importance of sustainable agriculture, and the latest science based information about global warming.
With all this they have a series of profiles of folks who are picking up and doing projects to reduce their own energy footprint. You can see this at http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/faces/faces.html. This month’s earthwise newsletter features one of them, Jeff Wild, pastor of the Advent Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisconsin. You can hear his story by clicking on the “faces” link above and finding and clicking the dot representing Madison on the map.
Pacific Gas and Electric announced plans yesterday to invest in new solar plants — some of which it would own outright and some of which would be owned by other companies which would sell the electricity to PG&E. Typically, public utilities like PG&E do not own their own power sources; they purchase it and are responsible for the distribution, so this represents a change in the business model, apparently in response to the world-wide economic crisis which has halted bank lending to companies in the alternative energy production business.
The utility announced plans Tuesday for a five-year program to build enough solar projects throughout its territory to generate as much as 500 megawatts of electricity, roughly the same output as a mid-size fossil fuel power plant. Using money from a proposed increase in electricity bills, PG&E would own half of those plants and buy power from the rest.
Though this, when complete, will only provide 1.3% of the energy demand for PG&E it’s at least a step forward.
Jared Huffman is Marin/Sonoma counties’ offering to the California State Assembly. In his first session he’s managed to get quite a few bills of environmental interest all the way through to Governor’s signature. Not bad for a freshman.
“Passing these types of reforms is the reason I ran for office,” said Huffman. “These bills represent the values of my district and I’m honored to have them put into law.”
* AB 1109 – Energy Efficient Lighting
One of the most important pieces of legislation this year, this bill directs the California Energy Commission to reduce California’s consumption of electricity for lighting uses by 50% in 10 years. As part of this strategy, the bill would phase out the purchase of inefficient lighting sources by state government. It also establishes mercury and lead reduction standards for lighting.* AB 1470 – Solar Thermal
This breakthrough legislation creates a ten-year statewide incentive program to drive half a million California consumers toward solar heating technologies that directly displace the use of natural gas for water and space heating in homes and businesses.* AB 1406 – Recycled water – Condos
This bill encourages water reuse by permitting the use of recycled water in condominiums, as it is currently used in apartment buildings.* AB 1560 – Water Conservation – Building Standards
Creates an important new standard of water conservation by requiring the Energy Commission to prescribe water preservation standards for new residential and non-residential buildings.
You can see the entire list in his October newsletter, here.
AB 1470, about Solar Thermal, is here and you can look up any of them here.
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