Parking Lot Historic, Solar Farm Not

NextSun Energy wants to build a small solar farm not far from me in Rochester, MA. While I don't know if this is the right place for the project, some of the opposition is ... not exactly honest. From the Sippican Week:

“I know there are four abutters or more. It’s an island of commercial in a residential area,” Monteiro said.

The historic district is an area that encompasses three square miles in the center of town. Buildings such as Plumb Library, the First Congregational Church and Town Hall are all located in the area.

Such a historic area, clearly undisturbed since colonial times!

Except it's right across the street from a shopping plaza with a huge parking lot:

The New Bedford Standard-Times doesn't mention the disconnect either.

And what kind of bucolic-character-destroying development are we talking about? Here's another NextSun project:

Looks exactly like lower Manhattan to me!

People can oppose whatever they want & that's certainly their right. But let's be honest: Historic preservation is often used as a shield for personal preference. At a time when we need to be building clean energy as quickly as possible to slow the climate crisis, is that enough justification to use government authority to block projects like this?

Everyone Hates Coal. Pandering To It Is Stupid Politics.

Political reporters paint investments in clean energy as a pander to a narrow segment of the Democratic base, while pledges to continue investment in coal are framed as smart plays to shoring up the moderate middle. And of course you have to support corn ethanol or you'll lose the entire center of the country!

But take a look at this new poll of homeowners by Zogby Analytics for Clean Edge and Solar City:

It's solar and wind that are broadly popular, while coal and biofuels have only fringe support - and keep in mind this question allowed people to name their top three.

Meanwhile, for all the talk of the popularity of fracked gas, it finished a distant third to clean energy.

Tipping Point for Home Rooftop Solar?

My fiancee and I are in the process of buying a home, which means I'm constantly worried about what amenities that are popular now will still be popular when we're thinking about selling the place. Granite countertops are the big thing now, but will they still be popular 10 years down the road, or will something else be the next big thing?

I'd never have guessed that the next big thing is rooftop solar:

Solar panels are the next granite countertops: an amenity for new homes that’s becoming a standard option for buyers in U.S. markets. At least six of 10 largest U.S. homebuilders led by KB Home include the photovoltaic devices in new construction, according to supplier SunPower Corp. (SPWR) Two California towns are mandating installations, and demand for the systems that generate electricity at home will jump 56 percent nationwide this year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

“In the next six months, homebuilders in California and the expensive-energy states will be going solar as a standard, and just incorporating it into the cost of the house like any other feature,” Jim Petersen, chief executive officer of the PetersenDean Inc., the largest closely held U.S. roofing and solar contractor, said in an interview.

Lashing panels to roofs during construction is about 20 percent cheaper than after a house is built. Homeowners who can afford the extra $10,000 to $20,000 cost in return for free power threaten the business of traditional utilities such as Edison International of California or Kansas’ Westar Energy Inc. Power companies are losing business because they can’t cut their rates in line with the tumbling prices of residential solar systems. Those cost about $4.93 a watt in the first quarter, down 16 percent from a year earlier, according to the Washington-based solar association.

It makes sense to promote home solar even if you don't own a system - every home powered by solar is one less home that needs to be powered by a multi-billion-dollar central power plant.

If you're interested in home solar, check out Sungevity - you get a discount and the National Wildlife Federation (my day job) gets a donation. Oh, and the planet gets a tiny bit saved. Everybody wins!

See What Happens When Local Tea Party Group Thinks For Itself

The Georgia Tea Party supports diversifying the state's energy sources to take advantage of the Peach State's abundant solar energy, saying consumers have the right to choose where their electricity comes from. Right now, Georgia utilities provide only gas-fired, coal-fired, and nuclear power, with only tiny amounts of hydro-electric and other renewable energy mixed in.

But Koch Industries founded the Tea Party to fight limits on corporate pollution, not promote solar power. So the Koch collective is now sending piles of cash to put down the pro-solar insurrection, as Kiley Kroh reports at Climate Progress.

The moment anyone bucks the pro-polluter party line, those Tea Party muskets of freedom turn into a firing squad.

Solar-Powered Robot Boat To Attempt Atlantic Crossing, Because Guys

At a certain point in your life, you realize how much of scientific progress relies on dudes without girlfriends. Today's example: The Rhode Island students who want to shatter a world record with their solar-powered robot boat:

For the past three years the two along with three other friends have been working on an autonomous vessel named Scout to make the trip across the Atlantic. If Scout makes it, it will be the first ever autonomous vessel to make the crossing. Brendan Prior, one of the vessels builders and partners, says, "our first goal is to have it break that 60 mile world record which we can hopefully do in two days."

Once Scout is launched, it will be GPS guided and will send back information every twenty minutes of the 3000+ mile trip. Dylan says, "Scout sends back it's position, course, and the heading. Conditions of the sea, whether it's calm or rough, pH, salinity, barometric pressure, and three temperature readings.

I am only assuming they do not have girlfriends, because if they did, good luck making it through an inning of watching a Red Sox game, never mind three years building a robot boat, amirite guys?

Follow SCOUT's trip at GoTransAt.com or on Facebook.

The No-Brainer of the Century: Solar on Old Landfills

Via WPRI.com

A new solar farm has gone up on the old town dump in Dartmouth in just five months:

The capped Russells Mills Road Landfill has a new lease on life after Borrego Solar Systems Inc. quietly topped the former dump with a solar farm, a venture that drew none of the complaints common to similar solar projects in town.

"It's the town of Dartmouth that showed leadership today," state Department of Energy Resources Commissioner Mark Sylvia said Wednesday during a ribbon cutting for the facility.

State and local officials including U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, state Rep. Chris Markey, Select Board Chairwoman Lara Stone and others attended Wednesday's ceremony celebrating the 5,300-panel, 1.4 megawatt solar farm slated to meet 20 percent of the town's energy needs.

If you have an old landfill and you don't have a solar farm on top of it, you're throwing money away. Even in March as the sun shines for hours less and at much lower intensity than it will in summer, the solar farm is already producing more than a megawatt.

But the article also has a reminder that to really reap the benefits of renewable energy, towns should consider properly-sited wind power:

The solar farm can produce 1.4 megawatts of power, slightly less than one of the two 1.5 megawatt wind turbines in Fairhaven, which stand 396 feet tall on land owned by the town.

Learn more at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

Saudi Arabia Aims to be the Saudi Arabia of Solar Power

When an opponent of renewable energy claims North Dakota is the Saudi Arabia of oil shale, or Canada is the Saudi Arabia of tar sands, it's a dead giveaway they don't know what they're talking about.

You know who's the Saudi Arabia of oil? Saudi Arabia. And considering the United States has just 2% of the world's oil reserves while consuming 20% of the world's produced oil, we're stuck buying lots of oil from whoever will sell it to us at whatever price they demand.

Now here's the kicker: Saudi Arabia knows it won't be the Saudi Arabia of oil forever. That's why it's taking our oil money and spending it on becoming the Saudi Arabia of solar power.

Meanwhile, Republicans like Mitt Romney, George Allen and Scott Brown are trying to cut renewable energy subsidies and count on that 2% to meet our energy needs. It's a plan to drill to nowhere.

Protecting Troops with Clean Energy "Most Foolish Thing in the World," Says Climate Denier

Denial isn't just about ignoring real-life impacts of global warming - it's also about ignoring real-life impacts of our dependence on fossil fuels. One prominent professional denier is even willing to ignore the safety of American soldiers, calling the military's efforts to cut its need for risky fuel convoys "the most foolish thing in the world."

Fuel supply convoys are a frequent target for insurgent attacks, with attacks on fuel convoys being responsible for over 3,000 American soldier or contractor deaths between 2003 and 2007 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Considering over 10,000 U.S. soldiers and contractors have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, fuel convoy deaths make up a sizable percentage of total casualties.

The military has responded with a furious effort to cut its need for fuel convoys increase fuel efficiency and deploy clean energy. To cut its dependence on fossil fuel-powered generators and slash fuel costs, the military is developing everything from large solar tents to provide both power & shade to small, foldable solar panels that troops in the field can use to recharge their laptops and other electronic devices.

I joined CCTV's The Heat this weekend to talk about the impacts of global warming and what to do about it. Alongside me was longtime science denier Steve Milloy, who's moved from taking money from Phillip Morris and denying the link between cigarettes and cancer to taking money from Exxon and denying the link between man-made carbon pollution and global warming.

Milloy dismissed the military's clean energy efforts and called for the fuel status quo to continue. Watch here (starts at about 16:40):

Going Solar is About Savings & Security, Not Organically Pickling Stuff

A solar power company called SunRun has unveiled these brilliant new ads. The company will put solar panels on your home for little or no up-front payment, take care of all the maintenance, and sell you the energy at a rate that's not just competitive with or lower than energy produced by huge, expensive, centralized power plants, but locked in no matter how high non-renewable resource prices spike.

The service is available in 10 states, but not Virginia, because if anyone tries to help Virginians lower their energy rates, cut their carbon footprints and gain independence from giant polluting power corporations, they can expect to get dragged into court by Dominion Virginia Power with the tacit approval of Virginia's elected officials.

The Green Miles' Hometown Saving Big with Clean Energy

My birthplace of Fall River, MA is combining clean energy and new efficient lighting to collect some huge savings:

THUMBS UP to Fall River city and school officials who celebrated the completion of the first phase of a multi-phase energy initiative that will pay off in the form of big energy and environmental savings. At Silvia Elementary School, a 76-killowatt solar panel was installed by Ameresco Inc., which has built, owns, and maintains four such systems at school buildings and the sewage treatment plant. In all, the first phase is expected to save the city more than $2.7 million during the life of the contract.

The project is being funded with $862,000 in stimulus funds and contributions from local utility companies. The city receives fixed utility rates as part of the contract. Over time, Fall River’s “solar” system is expected to consist of 2,624 solar modules, producing 750,000 kilowatt-hours annually.

It's a vastly less polluting and much more attractive way to power the city's future than the giant new cooling towers that just went up at a coal-fired power plant across the Taunton River in Somerset. Read more about the project at SolarDaily.com.

Dominion's Energy Tyranny: Where's the Outrage from the Tea Party & Ken Cuccinelli?

Virginia's 2007 energy re-regulation bill was a terrible idea from the start. It was essentially written by Dominion Virginia Power and rubber-stamped into law by the Virginia General Assembly & Gov. Tim Kaine, who showed no interest in challenging one of Virginia's top sources of money in politics.

Five years later, as Virginia Sierra Club Vice Chair Ivy Main writes in the Washington Post, Virginia taxpayers are seeing huge costs and little benefit:

Yes, the Dominion family owns some wind farms, one just across the state line in West Virginia. But we aren’t getting a single electron of that energy, because Dominion sells it to other states that have much tougher standards for what counts as renewable energy. For us in Virginia, Dominion buys cheap certificates that no one else wants.

That’s a great deal for Dominion. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, $1.7 million could buy enough of these certificates to satisfy Dominion’s 2010 RPS targets, qualifying the company to collect an extra $76 million over two years from its ratepayers.

Worse yet, Dominion is aggressively using its monopoly power to target any small businesses who try to sell clean energy to customers in Virginia:

The State Corporation Commission recently granted Dominion’s request to impose a “standby” charge of up to $60 per month on customers who install solar projects in the 10- to 20-kilowatt range (about twice the size of an average home’s usage). It’s enough to make these projects uneconomic and destroy the market for them. At a time when Dominion claims we need to build more power to meet demand, it is doing its best to keep small businesses from doing precisely that.

Even worse is its treatment of a Staunton-based solar company called Secure Futures, which has stepped up to the plate to put solar installations on university campuses, using a third-party power purchase agreement to ease financing. This summer, Dominion hit Secure Futures with “cease and desist” letters, claiming it can’t legally sell solar power to Washington and Lee University within Dominion’s exclusive service territory under Virginia law. Dominion, you understand, will not sell solar power to Washington and Lee, but it seems determined to make sure no one else does, either.

Where are Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli & his Tea Party friends as Dominion treads on the rights of small businesses and Virginia energy customers? Shouldn't they be screaming about activist judges and goverment stifling liberty? Or does Tea Party outrage not cover regulations that enrich its polluting benefactors?

Want to tell Dominion to create jobs and clean our air by investing in wind power? Sign the Virginia Sierra Club's petition to Dominion CEO Tom Farrell.

New Fossil Fuel Device Charger: 7 Times the Cost of Solar

The Green Miles is on the Amtrak Regional heading back from Massachusetts, where I read about a new butane-fueled device charger being developed by a company north of Boston called Lilliputian Systems. They're expected to hit the market in 1-2 years and cost up to $200, plus up to $5 for refills of butane.

But Boston Globe technology columnist Scott Kirsner doesn't mention that there are already solar device chargers on the market ... and they're 1/7th the cost of this butane charger. The ReVIVE Solar ReStore (to pick just one well-reviewed solar device on Amazon) only costs $29. Plus you don't have to pay for charges - you can just leave it on your window sill or dashboard for free.

Lilliputian would likely counter that its device rescues people who can't/won't plan ahead enough to leave their charger in the sun, but all things being equal, wouldn't you rather think ahead a bit and keep the big pile of money?

In the wake of Hurricane Irene's power outages, I ordered a ReStore & it arrived just before I left for Massachusetts. I'll give it a trial run in the next few weeks & let you know how it works.

Revisiting Arizona's Solar vs. Virginia's Coal

A few years back, I did a post about two states making divergent energy choices - Arizona picking renewable power, Virginia picking coal.

So how's solar power working for Arizona?

About 850 construction workers have descended on Gila Bend to work on the plants this summer, and about double that number are expected next year as the largest alternative-energy project in the state, the Solana Generating Station [at right], ramps up construction. [...]

Abel Ortiz, 49, of Buckeye, had been out of work for months before landing a job as a laborer at the power plant.

He said the pay assembling the solar-panel arrays was good. Normally, a labor job would pay about $8 an hour, but he's making more than $10 an hour, he said. [...]

The two small plants have a combined 34 megawatts of capacity, and Solana has 280, putting the economic benefit to Gila Bend north of $300 million from the current projects.

"These projects have been taking a lot of folks that have been unemployed and putting them to work," Geisler said.

Meanwhile, electricity prices in Virginia are up about 35 percent since 2005. Electric rates in Arizona have increased somewhat, but there's one major difference: While Arizona has incentivized efficiency, the Virginia General Assembly still tells Dominion Virginia Power to make more profit by selling you more juice.

So while Arizona Public Service Co. will be trying to cut its customers' electricity use 22 percent by 2020, Dominion Virginia Power expects demand to increase 30 percent by 2026. That means lower electricity bills in Arizona and higher electricity bills in Virginia.

How Many Virginia Jobs Could Strong Solar Incentives Create?

According to One Block Off the Grid, strong incentives for solar power could create more jobs in Virginia (7,675) than the coal industry employs (5,262):

Navy Testing Cool New Compact Solar Enegy System at Virginia's Fort Story

It's a story we're hearing more and more often - the military is increasingly turning to renewable energy solutions because they simply work better than dirty energy sources. Testing is underway on the latest innovation at Virginia's Fort Story:

The Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training and Evaluation Unit 2 in Virginia has been testing five prototype lightweight field power kits that include solar cells as a key component. The kits replace fifty pounds of equipment with a compact system that weighs only about nine pounds.

The heart of the kit is a one-pound device called a Soldier Power Manager. The Power Manager functions like a smart micro-mini-grid. In contrast to a portable generator that runs only on diesel fuel, the Power Manager can receive energy from various sources including solar panels and fuel cells. It recharges other devices by cable attachments, eliminating the need for individual battery chargers.

The idea is just one of several developed thanks to suggestions given to the Office of Naval Research's TechSolutions program:

Though the concept is basically the same as an old fashioned employee suggestion box, a single request can have a profound effect on operations. In one recent example, TechSolutions has been testing high efficiency LED bunk lights in response to a sailor's complaint about noisy, outdated fluorescent fixtures. Aside from improving readiness and health the new lighting system has already yielded significant savings in energy, maintenance, storage and disposal logistics, and it may soon go fleetwide.

For the military, clean energy isn't about politics - it's about saving lives with fewer fuel convoys & more mobile soldiers. And as nice added benefits, clean energy also saves money and cuts the oil dependence & carbon pollution that threaten our national security.

Washington & Lee U. to Install Virginia's Largest Solar Project

Great news from Virginia's Washington & Lee University:

Washington and Lee signed an agreement with Secure Futures L.L.C., a solar-energy developer based in Staunton, Va., today to install two solar photovoltaic arrays, totaling approximately 450 kilowatts, at two separate locations on the University's campus.

The first solar array, with a capacity of 120 kilowatts, will be installed on a canopy to be constructed over the upper deck of the University's parking structure. Lewis Hall, home of the Washington and Lee School of Law, will host the second array, a rooftop installation with a capacity of 330 kilowatts. Scheduled for completion by the end of the year, the two arrays combined will become the largest solar project in Virginia, with enough power to supply the total average annual electricity needs for the equivalent of 44 homes in Lexington.

As the Washington Post recently reported, demand for on-site solar power is heating up in our region.

Spotlighting Giffords' Push for Solar Power

Sometimes you only become aware of people who dedicate their lives to progress because of tragedy. (Would I know the name Harvey Milk if he hadn't been gunned down?)

I had no idea what a champion of clean energy Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was until this weekend. Here's one tribute from Anne Fischer, managing editor of Solar Novus Today:

While Giffords is a US Representative, her underlying belief in solar energy addresses global concerns: Economy and jobs; Security; the Environment. In terms of boosting the economy, the need for energy is growing and the worldwide market is currently over $6 trillion a year. Security comes from the fact that solar is local power and generating energy close to where it's being used decreases dependence on imported oil. The environmental aspect of solar is clear: Generating electricity from the sun does not emit carbon, does not dirty the air, does not create oil spills. Giffords brought these points to the people and to politicians because she knows that understanding these three key benefits is imperative to the advancement of renewable energy. We applaud the work that she has done, hope for a speedy and full recovery, and look forward to the day when all share her vision of a renewable energy future.

Learn more about Rep. Giffords' push for solar power at her website.

Video: It's Hailing Energy

Very cool clip from German solar manufacturer Solon AG Fuer Solartechnik:

Scene from the Sidewalk: Sign & Sustainability

On Saturday, I dropped off a yard sign at a supporter's home on George Mason Drive (his dog, Paco, came out to supervise). Andrew has solar panels that provide most of his home's electricity, even watching his electric meter spin backwards on sunny summer days. He's planning to add a few more to try to get off of Dominion's coal-fired power as much as possible. And of course, don't forget the Honda Civic Hybrid in the driveway.

If you'd like a Miles Grant for Delegate yard sign, email us!

Light Your Summer BBQ with Green Power

I was in Harris Teeter the other day and noticed this - a solar-powered tiki torch! Very cool idea. No need to worry about kerosene or batteries (both negatives for the environment) and different brands claim to last anywhere from 6-10 hours on a single charge.

The solar-powered tiki torches at Harris Teeter were selling for a ridiculous $100. Believe it or not, that was a mark down - they were originally listed at $150.

Fortunately, Amazon.com has several brands available, none for more than $30. Some even claim to be solar-powered tiki torches/bug zappers.

The customer reviews on Amazon.com seem to indicate that while the lighting is surprisingly good, the poles they come on are flimsy. Anyone ever used a solar-powered tiki torch?