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1. Obama Signs the Stimulus: What's in Store for Clean Energy
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2. Daily Sprout
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3. Firms Chosen for 6GW of Scottish Offshore Wind Projects
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4. Funds Flowing in Clean Water: Oasys Raises $10M
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5. What should Portland ad agencies and PR reps do about greenwashing?
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6. Which Peanut Products Pose a Salmonella Risk? 500 People Sick, 8 Dead, 125 Products Recalled
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7. Some Christmas trees don't die -- they go to Montavilla
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8. The next evolution in eco-diapering: SNL's Chewable Pampers
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9. Owning, sharing energy for the 'hood
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10. Win $10,000: Show Others How to Save Energy in a 30-Second Video
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11. National "global warming teach-in" returns to Oregon
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12. Desire (for money, sex or just more stuff) isn't good or bad, it just is: Hear more at Illahee
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13. Green movers say plastic beats cardboard (boxes) -- but when will one move to Portland?
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14. From the Dept. of Rebates: Money back for flushing; plus, don't forget to claim that 2008 energy tax credit
Obama Signs the Stimulus: What's in Store for Clean Energy
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
It’s official: The government haggling over how to revive the U.S. economy ended with the stroke of President Obama’s pen on the $787 billion stimulus bill this afternoon at the solar-powered Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Now begins a new round of jockeying — this time among companies — for the loans, grants and incentives awarded to their industry. Below is a look at key pieces of the final package for clean energy, from the $43 billion allocated for energy to the $111 billion that will go toward infrastructure and science.
Clean Power Grants: One of the biggest wins for clean energy developers comes in the form of grants for up to 30 percent of the cost of projects started in the next two years. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, it’s one of three critical provisions for solar, along with a more streamlined loan guarantee program and manufacturing investment credits. As Oerlikon Solar CEO Jeanine Sargent explained in a release last night, the industry expects these grants to “loosen gridlock in the capital markets with funding for shovel-ready solar projects that have been on hold due to lack of available financing.” The American Wind Energy Association is calling the grants a key measure for the industry, one that’s “essential to sustaining growth.” What’s all the fuss about? As the number of tax equity investors has dwindled, energy developers increasingly need help in earlier stages, before they have enough income to take full advantage of tax credits.
Not everyone is thrilled with the grants for clean energy projects, however. Ed Fenster, CEO of residential solar financier SunRun, said in an email today that he expects the stimulus package to increase the price of solar. While the package will help developers who are struggling to raise tax equity, he wrote, “it will not help these companies monetize bonus and accelerated depreciation, which is almost as valuable as the tax credit itself.” He added that while wind projects can qualify for increased subsidies, the package “only increases the availability of financing for and demand for solar projects,” resulting in higher solar prices.
Renewable Energy Tax Credits: The package extends production tax credits for wind energy, as well as for geothermal, biomass and hydropower, to 2012. “This is the first time in the U.S. we have ever seen such long regulatory stability,” said Peter Brun, senior V-P of government relations for turbine maker Vestas, in a release today. The company expects the changes to help stabilize the wind market and lure new buyers, as the Denver Business Journal reports. According to the Geothermal Energy Association, this also represents one of the most important pieces of the stimulus for geothermal energy, for which lawmakers extended the production tax credit (along with biomass, geothermal and hydropower) through to 2013.
Renewable Energy Manufacturing: Lawmakers created a new tax credit worth up to $2 billion for facilities manufacturing components for renewable energy production. Factories making equipment such as wind turbines and advanced battery technology can qualify for a 30 percent investment tax credit.
Transmission Lines: The stimulus includes $2 billion for transmission grid improvements and $6.5 billion in low-interest loans for the Bonneville Power Administration and the Western Area Power Administration, which could use some of the money to build transmission lines. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Jon Wellinghoff, acting chairman, considers the funds no more than seed money, according to the Washington Post. He expects the real adrenaline shot for the U.S. transmission system to come from private investors. “We need $100 billion to $200 billion worth of investment, and I believe we’ll see that money coming from the private sector,” he told the Post. The President himself focused a fair chunk of his remarks at the signing ceremony today on the need for a “nationwide transmission superhighway“:
Today, the electricity we use is carried along a grid of lines and wires that dates back to Thomas Edison –- a grid that can't support the demands of clean energy. This means we're using 19th and 20th century technologies to battle 21st century problems like climate change and energy security. It also means that places like North Dakota can produce a lot of wind energy, but can't deliver it to communities that want it, leading to a gap between how much clean energy we are using and how much we could be using. The investment we are making today will create a newer, smarter electric grid that will allow for the broader use of alternative energy.
Smart Grid: The stimulus allocates $4.4 billion for “modernization of the electric grid,” which is basically installing various hardware and software to make the power grid an intelligent 2-way digital network (check out our smart grid FAQ). Expect these funds to be a boon for smart meter makers, companies developing energy management technologies, demand response program developers, and utilities, which will be able to manage the power grid more efficiently.
Small Wind, Solar and Geothermal: Distributed clean energy generation gets a boost of $872 million over 10 years, with tax credits for things like solar hot water heaters and small windmills.
Green Homes: The stimulus package expands tax credits for more energy-efficient appliances and insulation improvements, for a value of $2 billion over 10 years. It also provides $300 million in matching funds for state rebates on energy efficient appliances and increases government spending on weatherization for low- and middle-income homes (annual income of $32,000 or so for a family of four, depending on the state, according to CNNMoney) to $5 billion, up from the current $500 million per year. Public housing projects get $250 million for energy-saving upgrades.
Geoff Chapin, CEO of retrofit company Next Step Living Inc., told us earlier this month that his company was “heartened” by the focus on weatherization in the stimulus, but noted two concerns: How quickly the government can distribute these hundreds of billions of dollars, and how effectively industry can spend them. “It will be critical that the focus on accountability and results that President Obama touts for his administration in general, and this stimulus package in particular, be driven all the way through to the organizations implementing these services,” he said. “The sector will need to grow quickly to absorb the money but still spend it effectively. That takes smart planning and strategic bets on models that can scale while still achieving results.”
Hear Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Cisco execs at GigaOM’s Green:Net.
Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Smarty Plans: Technologies that could take our decades-old infrastructure to new levels of intelligence include traffic forecasters, remote-controlled vehicles, smart meters and electronic reservoir monitors. — Wall Street Journal
Green Acres: Green Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs, are taking off in the residential sector as firms gear up for a future when real estate agents pitch inefficient homes as “energy fixers.” — NYT’s Green Inc.
A Call to Kill the Hydrogen Car: Want to free up $1 billion in the federal budget for advanced vehicle technology R&D? Then scale back the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle program. — Climate Progress
Texas Plugs In: Texas state lawmakers have proposed a $4,000 state subsidy for plug-in hybrid buyers and a measure to replace the state’s fleet of vehicles with plug-ins (if they’re not too expensive). — Green Car Congress
Could Cleantech Save the Valley?: Since November, Silicon Valley has seen a spike in job losses — but not in the cleantech sector, according to a new economic report. — CNET’s Green Tech
Firms Chosen for 6GW of Scottish Offshore Wind Projects
David Ehrlich - Big Green
The Crown Estate, which manages property in the UK, has picked 10 projects today for offshore wind development in Scotland, paving the way for up to 6 gigawatts of renewable power for the UK grid. But the nine companies and organizations involved in the projects, including E.ON, Airtricity, and Scottish Power, still have some hurdles to get over before any deals are final.
The Crown Estate controls the rights to lease the seabed around the UK for renewable energy projects, but has so far only awarded so-called exclusivity agreements for the projects. The Scottish government still has to look at the environmental impact of the proposed wind farms, and the exclusivity agreements allow the developers to start their initial surveys and consultations in meantime. The Crown Estate can only award leases for the sites once the Strategic Environmental Assessment is complete, and that’s not expected until January 2010.
The biggest project is from Scottish Power, part of Spain’s Iberdrola. The Argyll Array, sited west of Argyll and the island of Tiree, could produce 1.5 GW, with the turbines spread over a 224 square mile area.
Financing for the projects could be another hurdle, given the shaky state of the global economy and, more specifically, the shaky state of some wind power companies. Earlier this month, Clipper Windpower said it would cut wind turbine production by 15 to 20 percent this year, and the company has already laid off 90 workers at its Iowa plant. Turbine makers Gamesa and DMI Industries have also announced layoffs this year, and even Vestas Wind Systems, the top dog in the industry, is hurting, with CEO Ditlev Engel telling the Guardian last month that the global downturn is cutting demand for Vestas’ products.
Some big investors have already pulled out of the wind market entirely in the UK, including Royal Dutch Shell and BP. After dropping out of the big London Array offshore wind project last May, Shell said in December that it planned to focus its future wind investments on projects in North America, following in the footsteps of BP, which made the same move in November.
Hear Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Cisco execs at GigaOM’s Green:Net.
Funds Flowing in Clean Water: Oasys Raises $10M
Katie Fehrenbacher - Water
The funds come from some of the venture world’s most well-known investors on both coasts: Massachusetts-based Flagship Ventures and Advanced Technology Ventures, and Silicon Valley’s Draper Fisher Jurvetson (the fifth most active cleantech firm in 2008). Oasys says it will use the money to continue to develop its desalination and water treatment process, which it says can produce clean water at significantly lower pressure than traditional reverse osmosis methods. According to the company, that lower pressure means its system uses 90 percent less electricity and fuel to produce clean water compared to most systems.
The technology behind Oasys was developed at Yale University, led by Menachem Elimelech and Rob McGinnis and was seed funded by GreatPoint Ventures. While Oasys doesn’t go into too much detail about its technology, reducing the energy needed (and thus the cost) to separate salt from seawater to make drinkable and usable water is an area that receives a good chunk of the innovation in the water sector. Other startups are working on nano-engineering purification membranes, creating technology to mimic the filter processes of the kidneys and developing chemical substances that separate salt from water.
Because creating and managing clean water is such a nascent industry, it seems like the bulk of the investments have been focusing on early stage companies. As we pointed out last month, early-stage firms and less conventional sectors of cleantech are doing better than most, raising funds and hiring. VCs with already-raised funds are looking to spend on less capital-intensive bets.
Look out for other water startups raising cash in the next few months. Yesterday, we reported that water management HydroPoint Data Systems is looking to raise between $4 million and $8 million, and the company expects the round to close in the second quarter. The company sells an irrigation-control system that uses satellite data and weather-predicting software to help calculate how much water to dispense to different plants, and claims its systems saves water, energy and money, and reduces water runoff.
At this point, water investing is still a small area of cleantech — in 2008 water investments only made up only 1.8 percent, or $148 million, of the year’s cleantech investments. But while the millions for the water sector might not grow too much this year, the percent that innovative young water companies take from cleantech might get a boost as expensive clean power projects have been scaled back.
Hear Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Cisco execs at GigaOM’s Green:Net.
What should Portland ad agencies and PR reps do about greenwashing?
Shelby Wood, The Oregonian - Eat Your Greens
Which Peanut Products Pose a Salmonella Risk? 500 People Sick, 8...
susan - Sustainable Ideas
Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Peanut butter and peanuts – they’re one of the best, cheapest, most nutritious sources of protein in the American diet. But are they safe?
If you’ve been reading the headlines about the recent salmonella alert for peanut products, you've heard the stats: over 500 people have become ill; 8 are dead; more than 125 peanut products have been recalled. The Food and Drug Administration has launched the largest food recall in recent history — and is now pursuing a criminal investigation.
But if you've been too scared to read past the headlines, you may be asking yourself what's really dangerous and what isn't? Do I have to throw out my jars of peanut butter? What can my family and I eat — and what should we steer clear of?
Here’s what you need to know to keep yourself and your family safe and healthy. Take heart — if you’ve been sticking to organic peanut products, you are probably safe.
WHICH PEANUT PRODUCTS ARE SAFE
Your small jars of peanut butter should be safe — the source of the original salmonella contamination, according to state and federal officials, is peanut butter and peanut paste products made by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) at its processing plant in Blakely, Georgia.
PCA’s peanut butter is sold only in bulk to institutions – in containers from 35 to 1,700 pounds .
WHAT'S NOT SAFE
BUT – and this is the big but – PCA sold it's tainted peanut paste and peanut butter to over 100 firms who use it in products including
- candy
- cereal
- crackers
- cookies and
- ice cream.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has called for over 125 products to be recalled. In addition, several well-known companies have voluntarily issued a hold or recall on some of its products – including Kellogg's, General Mills, Kroger Co., PetSMart, and Clif Bar & Co.
NutriSystem Inc., also announced a voluntary recall of its peanut butter granola bars because the product contains peanut butter supplied by the Peanut Corporation of America.
WHAT ARE SALMONELLA SYMPTOMS?
Look for fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps 12-72 hours after ingestion of tainted foods. The illness can last 4 to 7 days.
Remember, most people can recover without treatment and without life-threatening problems. However, infants, elderly people and those with impaired immune systems can develop a severe infection that can spread throughout the body and even result in death.
If in doubt, consult a doctor. Prompt treatment with antibiotics is required to treat the illness.
CHECK PRODUCTS HERE
- If you’re wondering if a product in your home is safe or not, you can go to this FDA database and input the product name and code.
- For a complete list of recalled products, go to this page on the FDA site.
- For an overview of the issue, See Newsday.
- See a video on the recall.
Some Christmas trees don't die -- they go to Montavilla
Shelby Wood, The Oregonian - Eat Your Greens
The next evolution in eco-diapering: SNL's Chewable Pampers
Shelby Wood, The Oregonian - Living Top Stories
Owning, sharing energy for the 'hood
Shelby Wood, The Oregonian - Eat Your Greens
Win $10,000: Show Others How to Save Energy in a 30-Second Video
susan - Sustainable Ideas
Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
You want to save energy, save money and save the planet, right? So why not shoot your own little home video and show other Americans how they can be smarter in their energy use. Just a little 30-second video – and you could win $10,000.
That's all there is to it. The video contest is sponsored by Smart Power, an organization devoted to helping Americans become smarter about their energy use.
Need inspiration? Smart Power offers these factoids on energy use to get your creative green juices flowing:
- Phantom load (the energy that appliances continue to draw when you think they're off – but they're still plugged in) wastes roughly the same amount of energy as produced by 18 power plants!
- If every American home replaced just one incandescent light bulb with a CFL bulb, we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year, save over $600 million and reduce the emissions equivalent to 800,000 cars.
- If you are using a second refrigerator in your basement or garage, consider getting rid of it — you’d save over $100 per year.
So start shooting. The deadline for this Smart Power: Let's Get Energy Smart contest is Earth Day — April 22, 2009.
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