U.S. Green Building Council Launches Push for Energy-Efficient Schools

Stoddert Elementary School Principal Marjorie Cuthbert sees her school as a "microcosm of solving future world problems."

The Washington, D.C., public school reopened recently after a renovation that added a geothermal heating and cooling system, energy usage displays, information kiosks in three different languages, numerous new windows, a greenhouse made from recycled water bottles and carbon dioxide censors.

Students are assembled in "green teams" and give tours to visitors using a guide put together by the U.S. Green Building Council. The school is attaining gold certification from the council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, one of 6,500 schools in the country that are registered for certification or already LEED-certified.

With this "microcosm" as its backdrop, the USGBC launches its newest program today, the Center for Green Schools, with the goal of giving everyone the opportunity to attend a school like Stoddert within this generation.

New New York Jets and Yingli Solar Announce Completion of NFL's Largest Solar Power System at Team Headquarters

BAODING, China and FLORHAM PARK, N.J., Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited (NYSE: YGE), a leading solar energy company and one of the world's largest vertically integrated photovoltaic manufacturers, which holds the brand "Yingli Solar," and The New York Jets today announced the completion of a solar power system at the Jets' team headquarters and training center in Florham Park, NJ. This is the largest photovoltaic (PV) installation at a NFL team headquarters, utilizing over 3,000 Yingli Solar panels. Syncarpha Capital, the system owner, selected SunDurance Energy, LLC for the turnkey design and construction of the project, and partnered with Evolution Energies, LLC as the project developer. All of the power generated by the system will be sold to The New York Jets under a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).

Tracking Down Air Leaks

Air leaks are one of the biggest saboteurs of your energy bill. They cause your heating and air conditioning units to work overtime. But, you can increase the efficient use of energy by tracking down and eliminating sources of air leaks in your home.

How to Check for Indoor Air Leaks

Close your unit as tightly as possible—shutting doors, windows, flues, anything that vents to the outside. (Leave inside doors open.) Turn on the exhaust fans in the kitchen and bathrooms. This pulls air out of the house or unit and draws outside air in through the leaks. A common way to identify air movements is to hold a lighted incense stick near a suspect area. The smallest movement of air will cause the smoke to move. Another method is to simply hold your damp hand near potential leak sites. Air movement will feel cool.

Where to Check for Air Leaks

Any place one surface joins another (even if it appears closed) is a potential place for air to move in or out of your home—for example, where floor and walls come together, such as around baseboards or carpet edges.

Small spaces don’t allow much air leakage individually, but collectively they can eat up a significant amount of energy. Check all spaces where any type of opening exists such as electrical outlets and switch plates, fireplace dampers, around pipes, attic hatches, mounted air conditioners and mail slots.

Also, be sure to check caulked edges. Don’t assume they’re still air tight. Caulk dries over time and shrinks. Another application might be needed.

Doors and windows are in a category of their own. If they rattle or if you can see daylight around them, they leak. Fortunately, they’re easy to fix with caulking or weather stripping.

Making the Fix

Weather stripping is the simplest and least expensive means to eliminate air leaks around doors. Foam insulation is a variation on caulking that is available as an aerosol spray. It’s well suited for filling large gaps like the holes where pipes or wires enter your home. (Use with caution, however; it expands significantly and can be unsightly if overdone.) For just about everything else, standard caulking is all you need. Once the job is done, test again to make sure you stopped the leak completely.

Outdoor Water Conservation Tips

Even though we use water every day, it’s easy to take it for granted. Just imagine how you would function without clean water. It’s everyone’s responsibility to conserve and protect water resources. The decisions and actions you make today truly affect our water resources for the future. The following suggestions will help you get in the habit of saving water in the great outdoors:

• Get a rain gauge to measure rainfall. One inch of rain per week is generally sufficient for lawns and gardens. Supplement only when rainfall is inadequate.
• Use mulch around landscape plantings. Mulch will help eliminate weeds and hold moisture in the soil.
• Select hardy plants that don’t need much water. Native plants that are well adapted to your climate and soils will survive well without supplemental watering.
• Water during the cool part of the day to avoid rapid evaporation.
• Raise the mowing heights on your lawn mower. This promotes healthier grass that can better survive dry periods.
•  When watering is necessary, water slowly and thoroughly. If you notice puddles or runoff, turn water off and wait for water to soak in. Also be sure your sprinkler puts water where you need it—not on driveways or sidewalks.
• Wash cars efficiently. First give the car a quick rinse, and then turn the water off. Wash one section of the car at a time and rinse that section quickly. Turn the water off each time.

Indoor Water Conservation Tips

You can reduce your water consumption by 20-40 percent without purchasing expensive equipment. Reducing water use can mean substantial savings on water, sewage and energy bills. The following suggestions will help you get in the habit of saving water:

Kitchen

• Avoid the garbage disposal. It uses a lot of unnecessary water and can lead to problems with septic systems. Start a compost pile instead!
• Run automatic dishwashers only with a full load.
•  When washing dishes in the sink, use one side of the sink or a large bowl for rinsing, rather than running water.
• Keep a container of water in the refrigerator for cold drinks. If you have to run your tap while waiting for cold water, collect running water in pitcher for later use.

Bathroom

• Conventional toilets use about five to seven gallons of water per flush. Water used for each flush can be reduced by placing two half-gallon plastic bottles filled with water in the tank.
• Install a low-flow aerator on your showerhead and sink. These devises can be purchased at a hardware store and are easy to install. They reduce flow to approximately three gallons per minute instead of the usual five to 10 in a shower.
• Turn off tap water while brushing your teeth or shaving.
• Take shorter showers. During droughts, turn off water while soaping up.

Recycle that Old Cell Phone - Make Some Money ?

The next time you’re ready to upgrade your cell phone, recycle the old one! If all the estimated 100 million dead cell phones were recycled, the United States could save enough energy to power more than 194,000 U.S. households with electricity for one year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Less than 20 percent of unwanted cell phones are recycled each year, according to the EPA.

Recycling can help the environment by keeping usable and valuable materials out of landfills and incinerators. Cell phones are made of precious metals, copper and plastics, which require energy to mine and manufacture. Recycling these materials not only conserves resources, but reduces air and water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this year, EPA teamed up with cell phone retailers, manufacturers and service providers to develop collection programs. Some charitable groups and state or municipal solid waste programs also offer cell phone recycling.

To find out where to recycle your cell phone, visit www.epa.gov/cellphone.

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• "Recycle My Cell" Comes to the Pacific National Exhibition (newswire.ca)

Two New Jersey schools go green with solar roofs

Two New Jersey schools have turned to the sun, large-scale solar power systems, to help control energy costs and pollution.

Vanguard Energy Partners of Branchburg announced it has completed the installation of solar arrays on roofs at Pitman High School in Gloucester County and Gill St. Bernards, a private school in Somerset County.

"We are so excited about our solar project and how it is working," said Pitman Superintendent Thomas Schulte, describing the high school as "going green" in a statement released by the company.

"While we're capturing the energy of the sun and converting it into electricity, were reducing our reliance on fossil fuel, lowering greenhouse gases and saving taxpayer money," he said.

According to information released by the company, the 310-kilowatt system will provide almost 40 percent of the energy needed to power the school, about 350,000 kilowatt hours per year. Consisting of 1,284 photovoltaic modules, the system will avoid 553,646 pounds of carbon emissions annually, comparable to taking 48 cars off the roads.

Tips for Reducing Waste

Being careful about what you buy, consume, and throw away may not seem all that exciting even for the most committed environmental steward. But efficient daily practices and a little old fashioned common sense are good for the environment and your bottom line.

Use this checklist to see how many waste management and recycling practices you’ve implemented. Then make a plan of action to expand your efforts.

 Make waste reduction a priority in your home.
 Evaluate the waste you generate to identify and reduce your greatest sources of waste.
 Measure the volume or weight of the garbage you generate and set measurable reduction targets.
 Reject wasteful consumption by carefully considering what you need and buying products that last.
 Purchase products with minimal packaging or packaging that can be recycled, or buy in bulk.
 Use cloth napkins, cloth lunch bags, sponges/dish rags, reusable plates, and reusable coffee filters instead of paper alternatives.
 Repair or donate older or unwanted equipment and household goods to local charitable groups, rather than dispose of them.
 Purchase durable furniture and equipment or products made of recycled material to reduce waste from inferior products.
 Purchase recycled paper products, such as office paper, bathroom tissue, etc.
 Set up an area to collect recyclable of paper, glass, cardboard, aluminum, tin, and plastic.
 Compost outdoor wastes such as grass clippings, leaves, and kitchen waste (no meat or onions).

Shedding Light on New Bulbs

Standard incandescent light bulbs may soon become a thing of the past. Under the Clean Energy Act of 2007, the sale of energy-inefficient incandescent bulbs will be phased out over a two-year period, beginning with 100-watt bulbs in January 2012. Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) have become the most popular replacement choice. The typical CFL uses 66 percent less energy and lasts up to ten times longer than an incandescent bulb.


Making the switch to CFLs doesn’t require that you throw out all your incandescent bulbs right away. Even a gradual change can result in significant savings. Just replacing your home’s five most frequently used light fixtures can save you more than $65 each year, as CFLs provide the most savings when a lighting source is used for at least two hours a day. You can continue to use incandescent bulbs for fixtures that are only on for a few minutes at a time, such as closet lights, changing to CFLs as your supply of incandescent bulbs runs out. 

Today Show - Going Green

World's largest offshore wind farm opens off Kent

Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, will open Thanet wind farm in the English Channel off Foreness Point.

The 100 turbines, each measuring more than 300ft, will power more than 200,000 homes. It will increase the amount of energy generated from offshore wind in the UK by a third to 1,314MW, compared to 1,100MW in the whole of the rest of the world.

Mr Huhne said the UK is leading the world in an exciting new technology that will cut carbon emissions and boost green jobs.

However experts are concerned that Britain is relying on a power source that must be backed up by other technologies because the wind does not blow all the time.

Thanet wind farm, built by Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, increases the number of large scale turbines off the coast of Britain to 436. There are already 2,640 on land.

Furthermore there are almost 1,000 turbines being built in the UK offshore and onshore and a further 2,300 with planning consent.

Daughter of plastic grocery bag inventor debuts her own bags

Tips for Saving Water

Water conservation is an important issue for the association—and not just because we want to be environmentally responsible. An equally important reason is that we want to keep assessments as low as possible. Here’s how you can help:

Kitchen Aid

Large appliances—washing machines and dishwashers—consume the most water, so they are important places to start any water-conservation efforts.

- Set the water level on your washing machine to match the size of your load. Try to avoid doing frequent small loads; whenever possible, run the machine only when you have a full load.

- You don’t need to rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher! No, really. Hand rinsing dishes under the faucet uses 15-18 gallons of water per load. If your dishwasher has a pre-rinse cycle, try using it instead of hand rinsing. If a dish or two isn’t completely clean after the dishwasher cycle, finish the job by hand.

- Like the washing machine, only run the dishwasher when it’s full. If you have only a few dishes, wash them by hand in a sink or basin—not under a running faucet. Use a second basin or dishpan for rinsing, or spray rinse all the soapy dishes at once.

Splish-Splash—Conserving in the Bath

After these major appliances, the bathroom offers the next biggest opportunity to save water.

- Make sure your toilets are all working efficiently. According to the American Water Works Association, the average American home loses 14 percent of all water used to leaks. (And, remember, the toilet is not a waste basket.)

- Keep your showers as brief as possible or turn the water off while shaving or scrubbing in the stall. Consider installing water-saver showerheads and faucets.

- When taking a bath, close the drain while the water warms up then adjust the temperature. Monitor the tub as it fills, and turn the water off at the half-way mark.

Running Hot and Cold

-  There’s nothing as refreshing as a cold drink of water, but don’t let the faucet run to get it. Chill a container of water in the refrigerator instead.

- Avoid running hot tap water over frozen food to defrost it; put it in the refrigerator the night before.

- Rethink any tasks you usually perform under running water—like washing vegetables or brushing your teeth. (A gallon of water a minute flows through a tap that’s only half open.). Use a dishpan or bowl of water instead of letting the tap run. Then pour the water from the bowl on your house plants.

“Used” Water

Before pouring that half-filled glass of water down the sink, ask yourself where it could be put to good use? How about pouring it in the dog’s bowl?  And the condensate from the dehumidifier is suitable for watering plants. Other sources of “used” water are suitable for reuse—it just takes a little imagination and a change in routine.

Water conservation begins with each of us. If each resident makes a few simple adjustments in household routine, the association can conserve thousands of gallons of water and save thousands of dollars each year

Saving a Buck: energy efficiency

Power Down, Save Money

 Looking to cut back due to a tight budget or ready to go green? Here are 10 quick and easy tips to accomplish both:

• Unplug appliances and electronics. TVs, computers and kitchen appliances, as well as cell phone and laptop chargers, all use energy when they are plugged in—even if they are turned off.
• Use power strips. “Smart” power strips automatically turn off when electronics are off or when one main unit (like your personal computer) is powered down.
• Turn off lights. When you’re not in the room or not in the house, there’s no need for all the lights to be on.
• Clean and replace furnace or air conditioner filters. Dirty filters block air flow, increase energy bills and shorten equipment life.
• In the warmer months, keep the shades and blinds down on south-, east- and west-facing windows. In the colder months, open them up and let the sun in.
• Activate “sleep” features on your computer and office equipment. When they go unused for a long period of time, they power down.
• Lower the thermostat. Wear a sweater around the house and put an extra blanket on the bed at night.
• Use fans instead of air conditioning when possible or combine their use to turn down the air temperature a bit.
• Close vents and doors to unused rooms.
• Wash your laundry with cold water. It’s just as effective.

Check with the Alliance to Save Energy at www.ase.org for more energy- and money-saving tips or to subscribe to their free online newsletter.

Company turning a sealed toxic dump into a solar-energy development

Atop a sealed mound of industrial waste on a historically toxic swath of Gloucester County, N.J., Bill Geary sees a sunny future.

His company awaits delivery of about 6,500 solar panels for the former Rollins Environmental facility, where six people died and at least 30 were injured after a massive explosion on Dec. 8, 1977.

This notoriously wounded place looks far from hellacious; in fact, it's sort of scenic. Geary and I climb the slope of the defunct landfill that rises above the marshy grass in the heart of the site.

With maps and renderings, Geary indicates where "an array" of 6-by-3-foot solar panels will be connected "like Legos." Covering six of 90 acres of the landfill's grassy surface, it will generate 1.5 megawatts of electricity, potentially enough for 1,100 homes.

"This is our very first solar array, and we'd like to have it energized by the end of January at the latest," says Geary, an affable Bostonian who's president of Clean Harbors Environmental Services.

SEPTA hopes a giant battery will capture energy now lost

Every time a subway train brakes on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line electricity is generated. By next summer, a large-scale battery could be in place to capture and recycle that energy under a pilot project Viridity Energy Inc. started this week.

The energy conserving move on the transportation authority’s highest ridership line is just one of several actions that SEPTA is planning or has made as part of a broader environmental sustainability strategy. All stand to benefit the transit agency when state-imposed energy rate caps on Peco Energy Co. expire Dec. 31.

SEPTA spends an estimated $20 million annually to power its subway, trolley and regional rail lines. The Market-Frankford Line project will turn what was once an expense on the books into revenue by enabling SEPTA to capture energy that can be used later or sold back to the power grid, Viridity Energy President and CEO Audrey Zibelman said.

Read more: SEPTA hopes a giant battery will capture energy now lost - Philadelphia Business Journal

Power struggle? Saving doesn't have to be

Stuart Hickox, founder and president of One Change, says using a power bar on items like TVs can help avoid 'vampire power' -- power sucked from small appliances when not in use.

Photograph by: Wayne Cuddington, The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Citizen

Ottawa homeowners can cut their electricity bills by as much as $750 a year by taking half a dozen simple steps to reduce consumption, says the man who introduced the city to compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Stuart Hickox was the brain behind Project Porchlight, which delivered 250,000 free "CFL" bulbs to Ottawa households a few years ago. His organization, One Change, has since distributed more than three million bulbs in cities across North America.

Hickox is brimming with ideas for homeowners distraught by estimates that electricity rates could rise by more than 40 per cent between now and 2015. And none of them involves doing laundry in the dead of night.

JZGOGREEN TIP OF THE DAY - USE REUSABLE BAGS INSTEAD OF PLASTIC BAGS

Going solar: Ann Arbor man plans to make history with first 'net zero' home in a historic district

Solar Power Saves School Thousands a Year

Reusable Bag Poll - JZ GO GREEN

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Car Wash Goes Green

Water Use and Green Building

Among green building professionals, the relative importance of water conservation has increased as a topic of concern during the past two years. As energy-efficiency measures have become more widely adopted in new construction, the green building industry has shifted more of its focus to water conservation. In the LEED 2009 rating system, for example, certification requires that buildings reduce water use by at least 20 percent from a baseline or “code” building. A 2008 survey found that 85 percent of real estate professionals believed that water efficiency would be a very important aspect of green building in 2013, compared to 69 percent who said that it was in 2008.

The same survey found that early adopters of new water-conservation technologies are building owners/occupiers, with 42 percent of owners reporting in the same survey that more than three-quarters of their projects have water-efficient practices incorporated in the design. This compares with only 28 percent of architecture and design firms and 20 percent of contractors who reported that they used water-efficient technologies in their projects. One possible explanation is that owner/occupiers have likely inflated their own adoption figures owing to the utility cost saving they have already decided to pursue.

Johnson Controls HQ gets top green certification

Johnson Controls Inc. has been awarded Platinum certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, the highest such recognition, by the U.S. Green Building Council, for its energy efficiency and sustainability projects at its Glendale corporate headquarters campus.

The LEED certification is for four buildings at the corporate campus in North Green Bay Road.

“As a company that’s been in the energy efficiency business for 125 years, we believe it was important to set an example and demonstrate the benefits of incorporating the latest green technologies, including many of our own, into a multi-building campus setting,” said Stephen Roell, Johnson Controls’ chairman and CEO. “Hopefully, it will encourage others to improve the energy efficiency and sustainability of their properties, be it for one building or several.”

From the Roof, to a Battery, to the Grid

In the garage of Peter Rive’s San Francisco home is a Tesla Motors lithium-ion battery pack. It is not connected to Mr. Rive’s electric Tesla Roadster sports car, but to the power grid.

The California Public Utilities Commission has awarded $1.8 million to Mr. Rive’s company, SolarCity, a residential photovoltaic panel installer, to research the feasibility of storing electricity generated by rooftop solar arrays in batteries.

As rooftop solar systems provide a growing percentage of electricity to California’s grid, regulators and utilities are increasingly concerned about how to balance the intermittent nature of that power with demand.

One possible solution is to store energy generated by solar arrays in batteries and other systems and then feed that electricity to the grid when, say, a cloudy day results in a drop in power production. And when demand peaks, electricity generated from renewable sources could be dispatched from batteries rather than fossil-fuel burning power plants.

EDITORIAL: Green energy red hot in region

Three green energy advancements in Middle Tennessee hold the potential for significant research gains and industrial development that could change the course of the nation's economy.

These initiatives are leading to new jobs and possibly new technologies that could alter American fuel consumption and affect our lives on a daily basis.

We are excited to see Middle Tennessee playing such a crucial role in the nation's green technology.

One of the newest developments involves a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation to a coalition of 11 public and private universities, including MTSU, for five years of solar research.

MTSU will receive $370,000 over the course of the grant to provide summer salaries for two teaching positions and two student scholarships to conduct the research. Nathanael Smith, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Dwight Patterson, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, will lead the university's studies in solar energy.

Stimulus funds put solar power to work at Tucson VA hospital

COURTESY OF REC SOLAR

This 302 kW photovoltaic array was completed recently at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System. The single-axis, tracker-mounted system tilts during the day to follow the sun for maximum generating efficiency.

Tucson's veterans hospital is going solar fast, thanks to federal economic stimulus funding.

A 302-kilowatt, sun-tracking photovoltaic array was recently completed at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System.

And the VA hospital has announced plans to build a 2.9-megawatt, carport-mounted system that is called the largest of its kind in the U.S.

REC Solar Inc., a major provider of large-scale solar systems based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., built the roughly $1.35 million solar tracker array and will begin work on the carport system early next year.

The 2.9 MW carport system, expected to cost about $14 million, will cover seven separate parking areas to become, in aggregate, the largest carport solar system in the country, the company said

Constellation Energy to Add 4.4 MW of Solar Power at Denver International Airport

BALTIMORE, Sep 14, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- 


Constellation Energy (CEG 31.06, -0.18, -0.58%) and Denver-based Oak Leaf Energy Partners announced today the development of a new 4.4 megawatt solar installation at Denver International Airport (DIA). Constellation Energy will finance, own and operate the solar installation and DIA will purchase the electricity produced by the system from Constellation Energy over a 20-year period. Intermountain Electric (IME) plans to begin construction of the project--the largest customer-sited solar photovoltaic installation in Colorado--in the fall of 2010 with completion expected by early 2011. This is the third large scale solar project for DIA, with the airport having commissioned a 2 MW installation in 2008 and a 1.6 MW facility commissioned in early 2010, both installed and managed by Intermountain Electric. Yingli Green Energy (YGE 11.78, +0.02, +0.17%) will supply the photovoltaic panels for the project.

Univ. of Memphis to exhibit new water turbine

Geoff Greene saw the power of water currents up close 15 years ago, when a 25-foot boat he was riding in the Mississippi River was nearly dragged underwater when its anchor snagged on the bottom and pulled down on the back of the vessel.

A question then popped into Greene's brain: How can I harness that underwater energy?

'A lot of power there, I've got to look into this,' Greene recalls thinking. 'It evolved into this wonderfully simple wheel.'

Using water's movement to generate energy is certainly not an original thought -- dams and hydroelectric power plants fill that role. But Greene's challenge was to create a new way to produce clean energy and avoid the costly and time-consuming effort of building a dam or power plant.

Enter the Greene Turbine, a 15-year labor of science, engineering and love that will be exhibited starting Monday at the University of Memphis. Greene, a 46-year-old high school graduate with no college degree who earns his living as a handyman, has a vision of installing his turbines in rivers and oceans to add juice to the nation's electrical grids."

Survery finds shoppers unaware of plastic bag dangers

Abu Dhabi plans to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags, which take up landfill space and kill birds and marine mammals, by 2012. Andrew Henderson / The National

Most people know about the environmental impact of using plastic bags but fewer than half do anything about it, according to a survey.

Eighty-five per cent of the UAE residents surveyed said they had heard or read about the damage that plastic bags can cause, and 93 per cent said they would support efforts to reduce their use.

However, when asked whether they do anything to reduce their impact, 52 per cent said they did not use any eco-friendly alternatives.

Anheuser-Busch Invests In Solar-Power Expansion At NJ Plant

The Anheuser-Busch brewery on U.S. 1-9 dates to 1951, and the company is a century older than that. But behind the Newark, N.J., facility's redbrick walls lies plenty of new technology--alongside the traditional beechwood aging tanks, of course.

The 3.2 million-square-foot brewery now gets up to 5% of its electricity from 3,000 photovoltaic solar panels covering 65,000 square feet of its massive roof. The array produces a maximum of 530 kilowatts of power--enough for 62 average New Jersey homes.

That's not all. Construction is underway to roughly double the size of the power system at the Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD, ABI.BT) facility in a deal with Orion Energy Systems (OESX), the builder and proprietor of the solar rig.

Rays for Rent - In some places, leasing solar panels can make more sense than installing a system yourself

Stewart and Jackie Templer at their Arizona home, with the solar panels they are leasing.

Stewart Templer loves the shiny new solar panels on the roof of his 1,875-square-foot ranch-style home in Surprise, Ariz.—especially since they didn't cost him anything. He's leasing the system from SolarCity Corp. under a 15-year contract.

The system, installed in May, has helped the retired physical-education teacher and his wife cut their monthly electricity cost by nearly 35%. Instead of paying the local utility an average of $130 a month, he says, they write a monthly check to SolarCity for $68 and pay $15 to $20 to the utility for the extra juice they need, such as at night when the panels aren't producing electricity.

The leasing cost for their five-kilowatt system will tick upward in coming years, but won't exceed $102 a month, Mr. Templer says.

"Anybody who lives in this area who doesn't do what we've done is crazy," says Mr. Templer, who is 72. "The sun is out 300 days a year here, so why not use it?"

JZ GO GREEN TIP OF THE DAY - RECYCLE

Yolo Habitat for Humanity seeks to solarize its homes

Both Yolo County and the city of Davis are exploring climate solutions and going green.

So is Habitat for Humanity Yolo County with its newest low-income housing build, the Heidrick Ranch half-plex with funding support from PG&E and Habitat's executive director with her climate change project for the City of Davis.

'For the last several years, PG&E has provided grants to local Habitat affiliates to enable us to incorporate solar panels into our new construction projects. In 2008, we received $30,000 to incorporate solar panels into the half-plexes we are building here in Woodland,' stated Diana Walker-Smith, executive director of Habitat for Humanity Yolo County.

'Solar panels, care-of PG&E, were included in the three homes HFHYC completed in 2008 and these homeowners are paying just a fraction for monthly utilities as the majority of Yolo County residents' pay. For us, here at Habitat, it not just about building homes for low-income families, but building homes low-income families can afford to maintain and operate.'"

Recycle Gadgets and raise money for American Red Cross

I am hosting an online gadget drive through Gazelle to raise money for American Red Cross, and would love your support. 

A gadget drive is a new way to fundraise that turns your used electronics (laptops, cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, and more) into cash to support a cause. Contributing to my drive is simple. Just visit my drive webpage at http://jzgogreen.gazelle.com/, find the value of the gadgets you would like to donate, and send them to Gazelle (shipping is free). The value will go to support American Red Cross. 

If you would like to donate, please go to JZ Go Green Charity Drive (http://jzgogreen.gazelle.com/) to learn more about my drive and track my progress. You will receive a confirmation of your donation by email, and I will be notified as soon as you make your donation. 


Thank you in advance for your support, 


Jason Zeller

Energy company opens first U.S manufacturing, research plant in Phoenix

California-based Power-One, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of power inverters for the renewable energy industry, will open its first North American manufacturing facility in Phoenix. This marks the sixth such company to move to Greater Phoenix since January, drawn by the state’s landmark Renewable Energy Tax Incentive Program.

Governor Jan Brewer, who talked with The Independent Wednesday evening said, “Power-One brings the quality jobs I am committed to attracting for Arizonans. Arizona has a dynamic mix of resources, human capital and knowledge assets to optimize any company’s performance. Power-One is one more significant milestone along Arizona’s path toward strengthening our market position in the global solar industry.”"

Fresh & Easy Opens 1st Green Chill Store

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market on Wednesday opened what it said was the first grocery store in Southern California to use naturally occurring carbon dioxide refrigeration.

The store, located in Rosemead, is Fresh & Easy’s first to be GreenChill certified and is among four stores that the company opened Wednesday, including its 100th location in California.

Fresh & Easy’s "sub critical cascade" CO2 refrigeration system, which is one of only four in the U.S., reduces the impact of the store’s refrigeration on the ozone layer by about 70%, compared with industry standards, according to the chain, which is owned by Cheshunt, U.K.-based Tesco.

City Considers Ban on Plastic Bags, Extra Fee for Paper Bags

Berkeley officials are once again considering the implementation of an ordinance that could reduce single-use paper and plastic shopping bags in the city following the rejection of a California State Assembly bill that would have imposed similar restrictions.

The ordinance would prohibit retail stores in Berkeley from providing plastic checkout bags to customers and introduce a fee for each single-use paper checkout bag provided to customers, according to the text of the ordinance."

Although the ordinance was submitted to the Berkeley City Council in June, it was deemed unnecessary because of the assembly bill, which would have banned plastic shopping bags across the state, according to Nashua Kalil, a member of the city's Zero Waste Commission.

UPDATE -- U.S. Stadiums Go Solar: Major Pro Sports Leagues Move Together Toward Renewable Energy

MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL All Call for Teams to Encourage Solar Power to Help Combat Climate Change

The nation's major professional sports leagues are collectively sending an important cultural message in the battle against climate change by encouraging and endorsing the use of solar power and clean energy in arenas and stadiums throughout the United States."

Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer delivered a letter encouraging their teams and facilities to begin using solar power as they continue the effort to green North America's professional sports. The leagues also distributed a comprehensive solar development guide produced on their behalf by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) outlining the work necessary for each stadium to add on-site solar power generation to its energy mix. Having all professional leagues engaged collectively in this manner is an extraordinary event, pointing to the growing cultural transcendence of the fight against climate change.