Alternative Clean Energy Roundup: 24 April 2013

Green Business Forum at RIC Showcases Best Practices in “Green” Construction

Some of the state’s leading building, energy and sustainability experts will speak at a Green Business Forum at Rhode Island College on April 25 to discuss the best ways to incorporate green and sustainable initiatives in residential, commercial and industrial buildings. The forum will be held at 7 p.m. in the Forman Center at Rhode Island College. This is the first event in a speaker series that will continue this fall.

“Smart businesses have been ‘greening’ their operations for years and enjoy competitive market advantages as a result of these efforts,” said Jim Murphy, sustainability coordinator at Rhode Island College. The forum will highlight the benefits of these initiatives, while showcasing some of the “best practices” now being used by the state’s leading construction companies. read more>>>

Policy needed to tap $1T advanced energy market

April 23, 2013 - Advanced energy is a $1 trillion global market, growing revenue by 19 percent in 2012. But in order to take advantage of this economic opportunity, the U.S. will need to work to align federal policy, according to Advanced Energy Economy (AEE).

As part of its ongoing research, AEE's educational and charitable affiliate Advanced Energy Economy Institute commissioned PA Consulting Group to interview CEOs of advanced energy companies across a range of technologies and services, about how federal policies affect them and their businesses. The researchers interviewed companies big and small, established and start-up, technology-focused and service-oriented. read more>>>

Pure Citizen Homepage

The US distributed solar market

April 11 2013 - A group of solar rooftop industry executives had a wide-ranging discussion at the PV America convention in Philadelphia in February about the basic business models in use in the US market, customer default rates, investor returns, barriers to entry, emerging new financing strategies and other issues. The panelists are Ben Cook, vice president of structured finance at SolarCity, Kristian Hanelt, senior vice president of renewable capital markets at Clean Power Finance, Laura Stern, president of Nautilus Solar Energy, Sandy Roskes, vice president for sales at Astrum Solar, and Song Yi, chief financial officer of Standard Solar. The moderator is Keith Martin with Chadbourne in Washington. read more>>>

CSI research breaking down renewable energy myths

April 23, 2013 - If the U.S. ceases to burn coal, shuts down a quarter of existing nuclear reactors, and trims its use of natural gas by 2050, the resulting increased reliance on renewable would pose no additional reliability issues, according to research prepared by Synapse Energy Economics for the Civil Society Institute (CSI).

The research finds that by 2050, with a heavy reliance on renewables, regional electricity generation supply could meet or exceed demand in 99.4 percent of hours, with load being met without imports from other regions and without turning to reserve storage. In addition, surplus power would be available to export in 8.6 percent of all hours, providing an ample safety net from one region of the U.S. to the next. read more>>>

EcoLunchBoxes: Green Your Lunches

SA must use ‘limited window’ to become green economy leader, says IDC

22 April 2013 - SOUTH Africa had a limited window of opportunity to make itself a world leader in the creation of a green economy, which could generate more than 460,000 jobs, Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) senior economist Nico Kelder says.

Presenting before Parliament’s economic development committee last week, Mr Kelder said South Africa had developed good policies and laws to kick-start its green economic initiatives, but it had now become a matter of implementation and enforcement. read more>>>

US drops back in clean energy race

April 22, 2013 - The global clean energy sector is undergoing geographic and technological shifts as new markets emerge and renewable capacity grows, according to research released by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The sector registered a record 88 GW of additional generating capacity in 2012, even though investment levels declined 11 percent -- to $269 billion -- from 2011.

The 11 percent decline was due in part to curtailed incentive programs in a number of countries, among them Spain, Italy, and Germany. Policy uncertainty in the U.S. has caused investment patterns to fluctuate sharply in recent years. read more>>>

Air/Q: Safer, Greener, More Effective Air Freshening for the Home

Keystone XL Pipeline ‘All Risk, No Reward’ State Dept. Told

April 19, 2013 - Opponents of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline packed a State Department public hearing on its latest environmental analysis of the pipeline to warn that it is all risk for the United States, with no reward.

More than 1,000 pipeline opponents – far outnumbering supporters – packed a hearing room in Grand Island Wednesday to deliver that message to the State Department officials.

Chair of the new anti-pipeline group “All Risk, No Reward” Coalition, Nebraska landowner Randy Thompson, spoke against allowing a foreign company to transfer Canadian tar sands oil through this country so it can be shipped overseas. read more>>>

Duke plans to reach 6,000 MW of renewable energy by 2020

Apr 22, 2013 - Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) has released its most recent sustainability report, which lists a goal of increasing the company’s renewable portfolio and reaching 6,000 MW of wind, solar and biomass power capacity by 2020 among its other goals.

Duke added nearly 650 MW of wind and solar capacity in the U.S. in 2012 and now owns more than 1,700 MW of wind and solar generation capacity, according to the report. Duke Energy Renewables has invested more than $2.5 billion in renewable energy since it began operation in 2007. read more>>>