THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for December, 2009

Why you can’t solve a problem with the thinking that created it

Many are probably aware of the viral video hit The Story of Stuff created by Annie Leonard. Today the Story of Stuff Project, in partnership with Climate Justice Now!, releases it’s next project, an animated 9-minute video called The Story of Cap and Trade.

Produced by Free Range Studios, The Story of Cap and Trade does what no congressional hearing or lobbyist talking head can do - make a greenhouse gas cap and trade scheme comprehensible. The short video by no means explains the entire scope of the cap and trade schemes proposed here in the US, or in place internationally, but what it does give a thorough grounding on the subject so that you and I can start to make sense of it. Once we do that, we can explore further, ask questions, begin a real dialog, and perhaps see why cap and trade schemes are not the best mechanism to deal with carbon emissions and climate change. Based on that, we can act and urge our leaders to make better choices.

With the world beginning to focus on the start of the COP15 climate conference next week, the timing couldn’t be better.

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A new report by Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC) — Freeing the Grid — shows which states make it easy for people to sell electricity to the grid and which make it difficult. In addition, the report compares the current situation with the situation in 2007.

Overall, there has been a lot of progress on this issue since 2007, but there are still several lagging states as well.

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In a move that can be seen as indication of the far-reaching global effects of European cap and trade legislation, California has been selected by a British subsidiary of BP; to host one of the first hydrogen plants in the US. Hydrogen Energy International Limited will pioneer groundbreaking carbon-capture and sequestration technology in a hydrogen-fueled power plant.

When Kyoto Accord-based legislation first limited CO2 from fossil energy companies in the EU only 15% of the companies covered by The European Trading System took the future cost of carbon into account. A year later 65% were making their investment decisions based on having a carbon price.

The $2 billion, 390 MW power plant will be one of the first hydrogen-fueled electricity plants in the world with carbon capture and sequestration.

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A new initiative by New York City, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACENY) is making it possible for residents of New York to buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) through three easy steps on a simple, new website. The website is called Green Power NYC.

The program is starting off fairly limited, but is clearly helpful to consumers and the environment and is looking to grow.

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Scrap tires and scrap concrete are two of the most common - and most irritating - waste materials in the world, and now a company called PMGI/Productive Recycling has found a way to recycle both at the same time.  The company’s patent-pending technology compresses waste tires and concrete into building blocks.

Productive Recycling calls its product T-Blocks.  They are primarily used outdoors, in landscaping.  In a sustainability twofer, they can be used in wetlands reconstruction, erosion control, and other projects related to natural stormwater management and wastewater control.

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