Ecotality Life covers green tech, green gadgets, and green gizmos. We like playing with toys as much as we enjoy learning about the companies behind green products. Join us as we explore green business and green investing.
Harrison Ford is joining forces with green organization Earth Share and the Ad Council to promote a new PSA encouraging people to get involved in giving back. Seeing as today is Earth Day, I thought I would take a moment from the tech news to push some support towards this campaign.
Earth Share is a nationwide network of the most respected environmental and conservation organization. These groups include the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, Rainforest Alliance, and many others. Ford take part in narrating a new PSA that features a young girl being bombarded with images of natural degradation. At the end of the ad, the girl looks into the camera and says, “You promised me the world. Is this what you had in mind?”
Earth Share participates in campaigns at hundreds of public and privates sector workplaces, including WalMart, Nokia, American Express, and American Airlines. There, employees have a choice of organizations to support through direct deductions from their paychecks. Even $1 from every paycheck can make a difference.
A few weeks ago in a this post about Sprint’s move to use more alternative energy, I wondered aloud what other cell wireless providers were doing in the same space. Today, Verizon got the media spotlight for its green moves in Tampa, Florida. Verizon is expanding its green energy program in Tampa by installing 140 solar energy panels at its central office building there. The Tampa Bay Business Journal reports:
The installation of the solar panels would cost approximately $300,000, said spokesman Bob Elek. The project also supports Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s objective of reducing greenhouse gases in the state and encouraging alternative forms of renewable energy, the company said.
The solar energy panels are expected to generate an average of 19 kilowatts to 21 kilowatts of daily energy production, reducing the Verizon building’s normal power consumption by 5.5 hours a day, according to the release.
Good stuff - and better if Verizon does it nationwide. So, why Tampa? The press release sheds some light on that:
Verizon also intends to take advantage of rules being considered by the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) that would allow independent producers of solar and other alternative energy sources to offset energy consumption with annual electric bill credits and deliver excess customer-owned renewable energy to the electric utility. Called “net metering” rules, they provide incentives to promote clean, alternative energy sources throughout Florida.
One key to increasing the attractiveness of alternative energy is net-metering rules, which some states have but many states do not.
The Tampa project isn’t all that Verizon is doing. According to TMCNet, nationally Verizon’s bid for energy reduction also includes the use of alternative energy sources in their network, buildings and vehicles including the development of hybrid vans and service vehicles , the powering down or removing of obsolete equipment from their 411 buildings nationally; the use of micro turbings instead of diesel engines at two sites in California and the installation of seven fuel cells for primary power at a switching and training facility in New York.
It’s windy season in Southern Europe of late. On the back of growing demand for green energy, the money is being lavished on wind power. EDP Energias de Portugal a state-controlled utility company recently acquired Horizon Wind Energy an US-based wind farm operator.
Europe is already the world’s largest wind market. These days Southern Europe is lined up to make money on the back of growing demand for renewable wind power and the EDP-Horizon deal highlights this growing market. EDP’s bid for Horizon was well above the current market for wind power and is said to have set a trend for wind power investments. The prices of other wind farms in the US are expected to go up primarily because it’s driven more by investment climate than anything else according to HSBC analyst Angie Storozynski.
This recent purchase is expected to bring EDP’s wind capacity to 3,800 megawatts and diversify the organization’s renewables portfolio. The acquisition will make it one of the top three wind-power generators in Europe. EDP currently transmits power to around 8.9 million customers in Portugal and Brazil. The utility is still casting about for more projects despite last year’s acquisitions in neighboring Spain, Belgium and France. Wind profitability in the last five years is turning
Southern Europe into a more mature wind energy market. It is one of the fastest-growing energy industries in the world, and capacity rose 30% in the U.S. in 2006.
As an EU member state Portugal is wind driven by incentives like feed-in tariffs and green certificates. Grid operators are obliged to “feed in” from renewable energy sources at a minimum rate within their supply area; making it one of the most effective incentive systems in use here. Though EU directives are a factor for the growing market for wind in Portugal, the driving factor for EDP is wind force generates money.
Would you believe - or buy into - a “clean coal and solar” hybrid system for the home? Sharp Solar hired a performance artist and made a hilarious video about trying to sell clean coal and solar hybrid systems to the people attending Solar Power 2007. Most folks appeared quite skeptical. A little eco-humor for you, but also a reminder that just because something is pitched as “eco-friendly” or “green,” that doesn’t mean it really is.
GM and Opel released a video featuring their new concept car revealed earlier this week at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt (September 13 – 23, 2007). The car features GM’s new E-Flex system , making use of an electric engine powered via lithium-ion battery. This battery is continuously recharged by a small diesel engine and allows the Flextreme to reach an emissions-free operating range of 55km.
Quick Overview:
Emits less than 40 g/km CO2
- Plug-in Electric Vehicle Features 55 Km of Emissions-Free Range
- E-Flex architecture with diesel engine extends driving range
- Dynamic, sporty, compact electro-monocab concept car
- FlexDoors® and FlexLoad®: New for doors, tailgate and luggage solutions – and an extra mobility option
BP Solar’s announcement that it has broken ground on the new 60 megawatt, $100 million Silver Star1 wind farm 80 miles southwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area is just the latest sign of the increasingly rapid growth of the wind energy business in the United States.
As Bob Malone, chairman and president of BP America, put it in the press release, “Wind power is domestic, cost-competitive and offers rural communities a fresh revenue stream without impact to traditional farming and grazing practices. BP believes that sustainable energy alternatives and the development of the wind industry are in the best interests of the nation and the State of Texas – the leading State in installed wind power capacity.”
Wind energy sounds so attractive - the free wind blows, the turbines turn and the electrons flow - but, even as companies like BP expand in the wind niche, there is other news suggesting that while the wind is free, harvesting its energy is neither problem-free nor a panacea for our society’s energy needs.
Harrison Ford is joining forces with green organization Earth Share and the Ad Council to promote a new PSA encouraging people to get involved in giving back. Seeing as today is Earth Day, I thought I would take a moment from the tech news to push some support towards this campaign.
It’s windy season in Southern Europe of late. On the back of growing demand for green energy, the money is being lavished on wind power. 