Climate 411

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

Yesterday’s New York Times reported that a number of chain stores, including Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Safeway, and Whole Foods, are putting solar panels on their roofs to generate electricity. There’s a big opportunity here. Stores are the largest energy users in many communities, and solar panels could generate 10 to 40 percent of the store’s electric needs.

Solar power still costs more than electricity from coal, but:

[R]etailers believe that they can achieve economies of scale. With coal and electricity prices rising, they are also betting that solar power will become more competitive, especially if new policies addressing global warming limit the emissions from coal plants.

Read More »

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

The idea of generating electricity from human movement isn’t new, but recent advances make it practical in a way it never was before. This CNN article gives a good overview of how the technologies work, and where they are in use. For example:

• The California Fitness gym in Hong Kong captures energy from workout machines to power lights and music. The technology was developed by French inventor Lucien Gambarota. Another human-powered gym is set to open this month in Portland, Oregon.
• A London nightclub called Surya uses a special dance floors to convert vibrations into electricity. Another vibration-powered club will open next month in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

The floor technology can be used in more than just dance clubs. Any large crowd will produce vibrations. Sustainable Dance Club also has received requests for floors from bus and train stations, where it can be used to power lights and display boards.

And there’s more!

Read More »

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

Billionaire Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens is pushing hard for the development of wind power. He says that we can get 20 percent of our electricity from wind within 10 years if we put our minds to it, and is planning a large wind farm in Pampa TX.

And that’s not the only Texas wind project in the works.

On Thursday, Texas regulators approved a $5 billion project to build transmission lines for carrying wind power. The new lines will bring power into urban areas, easing a serious bottleneck. The decision will give Texas more wind capacity than the next 14 states combined.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

Yesterday, Former Vice President Al Gore gave a speech in Washington, D.C. that called for the U.S. to produce all electricity from carbon-free sources by 2018.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/dt9wZloG97U" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

You can read the full transcript on WeCanSolveIt.org.

Read More »

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

People tend to do things the way they’ve always done unless something forces them to change – even if the new way is better and cheaper. So Hawaii has taken action to spur people along. From an article in the L.A. Times:

California last year passed legislation offering homeowners and businesses $250 million in incentives to install 200,000 solar water systems over the next 10 years.

But Hawaii Thursday took far bolder action, becoming the first state in the nation to require all new homes built after January 1, 2010 to be equipped with solar or other energy-efficient hot water systems.

The article goes on to say that Hawaii’s switch to solar hot water will save homeowners money, and prevent the emission of more than 10,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year.