renewable energy

Warren County Kentucky is building the first net-zero energy school in the country.  Richardsville Elementary School will operate free of the grid by generating its own renewable energy, incorporating smart architectural features and a major emphasis on efficiency.

Sweden's energy minister, Maud Olofsson, announced yesterday that the country would install 2,000 wind turbines over the next decade that would add to 10 terawatt hours of clean energy per year.
The country is also aiming to have 50 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources by 2020.  To reach that goal, Sweden will be adding another 15 TWh of renewable energy from sources like solar power and biofuels in addition to the wind power.

The state of New York has opened up its electrical grid allowing further net-metering with the passage of a bill in the state legislature following a "Net Metering Summit" in the state last year. Among other provisions, the new regulations cap interconnect fees for small facilities under 25 kW, and allow non-residential wind- and solar-power projects to participate in net-metering arrangements.

Even before the Great Recession, policymakers were commonly asking, "Where are the new jobs going to come from?" Now with U.S. unemployment at 10 percent, that question has taken on a new urgency. And today's Mr. McGuire-like advice is as succinct as it was in The Graduate in 1967: "Green." Everyone from President Barack Obama to mayors of small towns are proclaiming that green industry is the savior of the U.S. economy, bringing jobs to the unemployed, needed economic activity to distressed industrial regions, and an overdue shot in the arm to U.S. industrial competitiveness.

Many of us were disappointed by the State of the Union address Wednesday night.  Sure the president stressed the importance of a climate bill and clean energy development, but he also committed to pursuing more nuclear energy, new offshore oil drilling and "clean" coal.

So far there's been quite a bit of competition between countries and states, all trying to plan and build the latest and greatest renewable energy projects, but a group of East Coast states has decided the key to getting offshore wind and wave projects off the ground is to stop trying to beat one another and work together.

I'm a conservationist. I was a conservationist before I was an EcoGeek. There is very little land on earth left in a sem-natural state, and I believe that we should keep as much of that land as natural as possible forever. Unfortunately, that belief does sometimes collide with my belief that we need to increase renewable energy production as fast as possible.