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The Green Week in Review is a podcast, hosted by SustainableBusiness.com News Editor Bart King. It’s posted every Friday morning and is about 15 minutes long. You can listen to it through your browser or download it to a portable MP3 player. Sign up for our General News RSS Feed and it will be automatically downloaded to your computer’s media player each week. In this week’s show… The U.S. EPA announced that it will begin monitoring air quality around schools, particularly near industrial and high-traffic areas. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a partnership to streamline weatherization programs. The Obama administration announced it would turn back changes to the endangered species act made by the Bush Administration. Green jobs advocate Van Jones began work with the Obama administration. The EPA proposed the first nationwide system for industry reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued an order to make renewable energy a top priority, and the DOI and FERC are working through a turf war that affects offshore wind and wave energy. The nomination of Gary Locke for commerce secretary was confirmed by Senate committee. Also, a report that […]
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This is an excerpt from our Special Report: The State of Green Investing 2009, produced by our green investment newsletter, Progressive Investor. You can purchase the report for $89 or receive it as part of a 5 month ($112) or a year ($185) subscription. See the Table of Contents. We included this excerpt to give you some insight into how we fold recommended green investments into the larger view of current market conditions. The following interview is with Patrick McVeigh, president of Reynders, McVeigh Capital Management, a green/social portfolio management firm. We talked about his impression of market conditions, the impact of the stimulus plan on cleantech, and how they are managing porfolios under these circumstances. PI: What’s your impression of current market conditions? Patrick McVeigh: We’re open to the idea that this isn’t a decade long mess we’re staring into, but the problems caused by too much debt in the world will not be easy to correct. We’re looking for early indicators of change in the economy, and will increase our equity positions when we have more confidence we’re at a turning point. There are still risks. We’re still at an early stage of working off the excess leverage […]
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DOE: $2.4B for Plug-in Vehicles DOE: $535M Loan Guarantee to Solyndra Solar: Grew at a Record Pace in 2008 Georgia Power to Switch Coal Plant to Biomass Regulators Propose Priorities for Smart Grid Standards Insurance Regulators Require Climate Change Risk Disclosure DOE Offers $2.4B to Support Plug-In Vehicles President Obama announced last week that DOE is offering up to $2.4 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to support next-generation plug-in vehicles and their advanced battery components. Of the $2.4 billion, $1.5 billion in grants will go to U.S. manufacturers to produce high-efficiency batteries and their components; $500 million in grants will go to U.S. manufacturers to produce other components needed for electric vehicles, such as electric motors; and $400 million will go towards projects that demonstrate and evaluate plug-in hybrids and other electric infrastructure concepts. When these vehicles are offered for sale, U.S. residents who purchase them will be able to claim a tax credit of up to $7,500. Building a U.S. plug-in vehicle industry will create tens of thousands of jobs. DOE will provide assistance to construct or upgrade battery manufacturing, component, and recycling plants for lithium-ion and other advanced batteries, as well as for factories producing […]
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DOE to Invest $8B in Weatherization and State Energy Grants Appropriations Act Provides $2B in New Funding for EERE Interior Department Pursues Renewable Energy on Land & Sea USDA Funds Energy Audits for Farms, Ranches, Rural Small Businesses Electric Industry Examines Adding Solar Energy to Coal Plants U.S. Transit Use Up, Driving Down in 2008 Cellulosic Ethanol Gains Ground in Iowa, NY, South Dakota Extended Daylight Saving Time Saves Energy U.S. GHG Emissions Increased 1.4% in 2007 Worsening Findings on Climate Change Space Shuttle Delivers Final Set of Solar Wings to the ISS DOE to Invest $8 Billion in Weatherization and State Energy Grants DOE announced last week that it will invest nearly $8 billion in state and local weatherization and energy efficiency efforts as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The funds will be divided between the Weatherization Assistance Program, which will receive nearly $5 billion, and the State Energy Program, which will receive nearly $3 billion. This will help families save hundreds of dollars every year on their energy bills, while creating approximately 87,000 jobs. To jump-start the job creation and weatherization work, DOE is initially releasing $780 million and will release more as the states […]
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By Bart King "Out of sight, out of mind" is the time-honored method of dealing with waste. It includes open dumps on the outskirts of villages and massive urban landfills like New York City’s Fresh Kills, which is the largest man-made structure on earth, surpassing in volume even the Great Wall of China. This attitude is responsible not only for the cigarette flicked out the car window and garbage dumped in the ocean, but also for crackpot schemes to blast trash into outer space and bury radioactive materials for thousands of years. But waste doesn’t stay out of sight. It returns front-and-center as contaminated ground water; diseases like dysentery and cancer; or a seagull with a plastic six-pack ring looped around its neck. Global population growth continues to intensify the problem, creating more waste and fewer places to hide it. And unless humanity begins learning to live without waste, we will eventually be up to our ears in trash. Global warming could be the wake-up call we need to change our ways. Some of us are still in groggy denial, but world leaders are rising to the idea that man-made greenhouse gases, which have been conveniently disappearing from tailpipes and […]
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By Bart King I’m tired of hearing that the Southeast doesn’t have the same wealth of renewable energy resources other parts of the country have. I’ve lived in Georgia most of my life and traveled enough to know this statement is just ridiculous. The first time I heard it, I thought: you’ve got to be kidding. Even when we’re not in the middle of a drought–which may soon be our permanent condition thanks to climate change–the sun can be relentless here. I thought maybe I was missing something–that perhaps our percentage of cloudy days or high humidity made solar power ineffective. This seems plausible when you consider that the top two solar states are California and Nevada. But number three on the list is New Jersey, which can’t possibly be any sunnier or drier than Georgia. And it isn’t. We have data to go on. A simple Internet search brings up numerous maps of U.S. solar potential, and they all show that the Southeast is second only to the Southwest. Florida and North Carolina apparently have found this information, because they are both actively pursuing the development of solar power. And if that isn’t proof enough, a little more research […]
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Officials in Portland, Oregon have proposed a far-reaching green building program that would be the first of its kind in the U.S. For new commercial buildings 20,000 square feet or larger, the proposal sets up a "feebate" program – developers that merely meet Oregon’s state building code would be assessed a fee by the City of up to $3.46 per square foot. The fee would be waived for buildings that achieve LEED Silver certification; and those that achieve LEED Gold, LEED Platinum or the Living Building Challenge, would receive rebates of $1.73-$17.30 per square foot depending on the level of certification. The policy also requires buildings to achieve specific LEED credits, emphasizing energy efficiency and water use reduction, for example. Multifamily residential properties 5000 square feet or larger would be subject to the same requirements and be eligible for rebates of $0.51-$5.15 per square foot. Larger multifamily projects 50,000 square feet or larger that receive City funding must meet at least LEED Silver and must avoid wood products with added urea formaldehyde as well as vinyl flooring. All existing commercial and multifamily residential buildings will have to publicly disclose energy performance by 2013 but won’t have to make improvements. For […]
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The Green Week in Review is a podcast, hosted by SustainableBusiness.com News Editor Bart King. It’s posted every Friday morning and is about 15 minutes long. You can listen to it through your browser or download it to a portable MP3 player. Sign up for our General News RSS Feed and it will be automatically downloaded to your computer’s media player each week. In this week’s show… President Obama addressed Congress this week to push his legislative agenda, beginning with clean energy and a carbon cap-and-trade bill. On Tuesday U.S. courts rejected two weak regulatory efforts put forth by the Bush-era EPA. The EPA and the transportation Department are working together to devise a single policy for regulating vehicle emissions Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is scrapping the Bush’s midnight regulations designed to rush oil shale development; however, he intends to replace it with a plan of his own. Irrigation water will be unavailable to farmers in California’s main agricultural region this year, meaning 1 million acres will be left idle as drought conditions worsen. A NASA satellite designed to monitor carbon dioxide levels on earth crashed into the ocean shortly after launch. Plus, as always, a quick review of top […]
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President’s Budget Draws Clean Energy Funds from Climate Measure DOE and HUD Team up to Support Home Weatherization Ford Begins Production of Fuel-Efficient Engines at Cleveland Plant Ford Launches Hybrid Sedans, Plans All-Electric Delivery Van U.S. Utilities Pursue Large-Scale Solar Power Facilities Report Highlights the Importance of Water for Energy Production President’s Budget Draws Clean Energy Funds from Climate Measure President Obama released a rough outline of his proposed budget for fiscal year (FY) 2010 last week, and the document proposes to support clean energy development with a 10-year investment of $15 billion per year, generated from the sale of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions credits. The funding hinges on the passage of an economy-wide GHG emissions program, under which the Obama administration intends to reduce U.S. GHG emissions to 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. Under the proposed cap-and-trade program, all GHG emissions credits would be auctioned off, generating an estimated $78.7 billion in additional revenue in FY 2012, steadily increasing to $83 billion by FY 2019 (and presumably increasing more beyond that, although the budget proposal doesn’t look any further). The president’s proposed budget directs $15 billion per year of those […]
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By Bart King As you may remember from an earlier editorial, I am the curator of a fine art exhibit called “Running on Empty: the fossil fuel addiction,” which is currently on display at the non-profit gallery ATHICA in Athens, Georgia. The gallery has a tradition of hosting associated events for its exhibits including curator-led discussions and musical performances. Since I moonlight as a singer-songwriter, I decided to combine the two types of events into a single performance this Saturday. I’ll be discussing the artwork and performing a mix of original songs and cover tunes that speak to the environmental and social issues addressed in the exhibit. Preparing for the performance has given me a chance to revisit some favorite environmental songs and discover a few I hadn’t heard before. So here’s my new list of favorites: Rainbow Stew by Merle Haggard – This song, with its promise of free “bubble-ubb and rainbow stew,” fantasizes about a future when the gasoline car is gone and sunlight heats our homes. It’s been almost 30 years since the song was recorded live in Anaheim Stadium, and we’re still trying to figure out how to “burn water.” But we just might have a […]
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