By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Under an Executive Order signed by President Obama in October 2009, federal agencies and departments are now required to release Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Sustainability and Energy Scorecards to "to target and track the best opportunities to lead by example in clean energy; and to meet a range of energy, water, pollution, and waste reduction targets." The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) released its first scorecard under the Executive Order and reports that TVA is on track to reduce the energy use of its office buildings, shops and warehouses by 30% by 2015! 

Scorecards for other federal agencies and departments can be found at this link.

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Renewable energy advocates are rallying in opposition of fossil fuels:

More than 10,000 people converged in Washington, DC, this past week to discuss, organise, mobilise and protest around the issue of climate change. While tax day Tea Party gatherings of a few hundred scattered around the country made the news, this massive gathering, Power Shift 2011, was largely ignored by the media. They met the week before Earth Day, around the first anniversary of the BP oil rig explosion and the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, while the Fukushima nuclear plant still spews radioactivity into the environment. Against such a calamitous backdrop, this renewed movement's power and passion ensure that it won't be ignored for long.

. . .

On Monday 18 April, tax day in the US, thousands held a "Make Big Polluters Pay" rally, targeting the fossil fuel and non-renewable energy industries. The demonstrators gathered in Lafayette Park, a traditional protest square wedged between the White House and the US Chamber of Commerce. As Bill McKibben said, the Chamber "spends more money lobbying than the next five lobbies combined …"

"It spent more money on politics last year than the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee combined, and 94% of that went to climate deniers."

The debateover fossil fuel use and subsidies appears far from over.

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Solar panels that float on water?  Very impressive and very cool: 

Already, 144 solar panels sit atop pontoons moored on a three-acre irrigation pond surrounded by vineyards in Petaluma in Sonoma County. Some 35 miles to the north, in the heart of the Napa Valley, another array of 994 solar panels covers the surface of a pond at the Far Niente Winery.

“Vineyard land in this part of the Napa Valley runs somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 an acre,” said Larry Maguire, Far Niente’s chief executive. “We wanted to go solar but we didn’t want to pull out vines.”

. . . . The solar panel aqua farms have drawn interest from municipal water agencies, farmers and mining companies enticed by the prospect of finding a new use for — and new revenue from — their liquid assets, solar executives said.

. . .

Solar entrepreneurs had hoped to persuade the California State Water Project to cover the 400-mile California Aqueduct with photovoltaic panels. The panels could then generate electricity in the canal that irrigates the agricultural empire of the Central Valley and helps supply water to 25 million Californians.

. . .

That is Sunengy’s strategy. Mr. Connor said the company was looking to developing countries to turn hydroelectric dams and village reservoirs into giant batteries.

“Any solar power you generate on the dam allows you to feed the transmission line and save water in the dam for use on rainy days or at night,” he said.

Sunengy’s plan would deploy rafts of solar units that use a plastic lens to track the sun and concentrate sunlight on small photovoltaic cells that use less expensive silicon than conventional cells. In high winds, the lens stows under the water.

“If you have a drought on a hydroelectric dam, your asset is dead,” Mr. Connor said. “If you have solar power on that dam, you can continue to generate electricity.”

An interesting benefit to floating solar power plants would also be to control algae. 

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Just an amazing story on participants in the Barefoot College, a school that teaches women to be solar engineers, even women who do not know how to read, write or speak the language.  Sanjit Bunker Roy, an Indian educator, has since 2005 brought 140 women from Africa to India to be trained as solar engineers:

In India, they receive a six-month training course, taught in sign language and color codes, in which they learn to install, maintain and operate household, solar-powered lighting systems.

The women are taught to install integrated circuit boards for solar home lights and off-grid solar units generating up to 500 kilowatts per day. They are also taught to assemble simple solar lanterns and compact fluorescent lamps, parabolic solar cookers and solar water heaters.

Then they return home to electrify their villages.

According to Barefoot College, in the five years since Mr. Roy extended his program to Africa, the 140 women have provided solar power to 9,118 remote homes in 21 African countries.

“When people tell me there are no local solutions, I don’t believe them,” Mr. Roy said. “There is an indigenous solution everywhere.”

When he started the college, Mr. Roy had no idea his reach would extend beyond India. His aim was to address the poverty and energy crisis that continues to plague rural India — where still, today, more than 70 percent of the country’s nearly 1.2 billion people live.

According to Mr. Roy, about 40 percent of rural Indian households do not have access to electricity. More than 85 percent of them rely on kerosene for lighting and firewood for cooking.

. . .

In India and surrounding countries alone, the college has trained hundreds of women to electrify more than 600 villages from Kashmir to Bhutan, in remote parts of the Himalayas.

“The solar engineer grandmothers have proven that the impossible is possible,” Mr. Roy said.

Read the whole article, it is powerful and forth the time spent reading.

I also found this to be an interesting view: “’Young people are untrainable,’ he said. “They are obsessed with training certificates, which we do not provide, and once they get the training, they leave the village looking for money and opportunity in the city.” In contrast, he said, older rural women are less likely to desert their villages for greener pastures.”

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Good to know: a wind study is occurring at Sewanee: The University of the South.

The process started months ago when I visited Sewanee to meet with the University’s Sustainability Director and representatives from TVA and the local power distributer, Duck River EMC. In our meeting we compared wind maps with university-owned property and picked a location with an unobstructed access to a steady wind stream from the West. Fortunately for us, when we went to look at the chosen site there was already a 110-foot-tall communications tower right there.

Once the department in charge of the communications tower gave permission for us to use the tower for the wind study, we were able to install the wind measurement equipment. Duck River EMC hired Johnson Crane Services to bring a bucket truck with a boom long enough to reach above the tower. Duck River generously agreed to perform the anemometer installation as well.

SACE is able to provide all of the wind measurement equipment on loan to the university through our Tennessee Anemometer Loan Program, a program that was made financially possible through the Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America initiative. We also collect and analyze the data free of charge.

The equipment placed at the top of the tower sends information to a data logger. The data logger calculates and records the average wind speed and direction for every ten minutes. We plan to collect this data for at least one year.

Once I have the data, I’ll correlate the frequency of the wind speeds with several wind turbine manufacturers’ power curves to determine its generation output. This will show us what each wind turbine would have produced if it had been at the site. I’ll then multiply the electricity generation by TVA’s Generation Partners Program rate for purchasing wind energy generated from small systems, which is currently three cents above the retail electricity rate per kilowatt-hour. The results will help the university make an informed decision on whether wind energy is right for the location.

This is just one project the University of the South is focusing on to reduce its carbon footprint. For example, the university has already implemented energy saving control strategies to its Building Automation System and efficient lighting retrofits like switching T12 fluorescent lighting to T8. They also had an alumnus engineer the plans for a 34kW solar panel system on Snowden Hall, installed last fall.

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Seems kind of early for a top 10 list of 2011, but here are top 10 green buildings picked by architects for 2011!

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

EPA has come under fire for moving its Kansas City regional headquarters from the downtown to a suburban area, going against its call for sustainability. 

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Here's a bit more discussion and details on this entry outlining Nashville's green goals. The New York Times article focuses on how the initiative in Nashville to be the greenest city in the Southeast is particularly significant in view of the flood that happened a year ago.

The Nashville Metro Government and nonprofit conservation groups were already working on the plan at the time of the flooding. The resulting destruction only heightened the city's need for a system of greenways that can act as natural flood barriers.

"The plan certainly will help us for protection for floods," Dean said in an interview after the announcement. "Part of what we're looking at is ways to preserve open space, water quality, natural habitat. By expanding the open space along the river, it should have a very positive impact on flood mitigation."

Nashville: Naturally calls for increasing the city's parkland and green infrastructure by 6,000 acres in the next 10 years and by another 6,000 by 2035. An additional 10,000 acres of floodplain and sensitive natural areas would also be protected in the next decade.

Downtown Nashville's tree canopy would be doubled and its impervious surfaces, such as parking lots, converted to pervious surfaces or natural plantings in the next 10 years.

Dean said he is committed to making Nashville "the most green, environmentally friendly city in the Southeast."

Great solution to the flooding problems for sure.

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

California has a long history a leader in sustainability so it's not surprising to see the state is poised to set the most ambitious renewable power standards in the country. Legislation expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown will require one-third of utilities power to come from solar cells, windmills or other such sources within 10 years. 

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

A Navajo community in Arizona is the first tribal community to adopt a green building code. according to the U.S. Environmental Agency.  

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

The headline certainly implies that this is specific to green buildings, although that is certainly not the case: "Migratory birds run afoul of green buildings."

The U.S. Green Building Council, however, is working on resolving this issue for green buildings, at least:

The American Bird Conservancy and other environmental groups are working with the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers the LEED system, to develop a pilot program giving architects credit for designing bird-friendly structures.

In addition, the Conservancy has helped develop federal legislation that would require bird-safe construction for new federal buildings and mitigation on existing buildings where it is practical. U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., introduced the bill a year ago and will reintroduce it this month.

"The way we live our lives cannot be detrimental to other species," Quigley said in a statement provided by an aide.

Brendan Owens, vice president of technical development for LEED, said the Council is getting close to doing a pilot test to establish points for bird-friendly structures that could make them eligible for LEED accreditation.

"The reason it's on our radar screen is because of groups like ABC bringing it to our attention," Owens said.

The Conservancy estimates at least 100 million and up to 1 billion birds are killed annually in the United States when they crash into buildings. That number doesn't take into account the millions more that get killed when they fly into TV towers, wind turbines and vehicles.

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Speaking of natural gas, interest in liquified natural gas is gaining momentum again as gas prices climb.

However, as fuel prices again soar above $4 per gallon, there is a renewed effort to support the use of natural gas. On Wednesday, April 13, Pickens and U.S. lawmakers plan to attend an event in Washington, DC, to educate the public about the importance of natural gas-powered vehicles, including heavy trucks, sponsored by the Natural Gas Vehicles for America organization.

A bill designed to wean the U.S. from its dependence on foreign oil – HR1380 – was introduced in the U.S. House on April 6. The bill, which promotes the purchase and production of natural gas-powered vehicles, has gained bipartisan support and 133 cosponsors. The bill also includes incentives for natural gas fueling pumps.

The bill, the “New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions – NAT GAS Act – was introduced by Reps. John Sullivan, R-OK; Dan Boren, D-OK; John Larson, D-CT, and Kevin Brady, R-TX.

HR1380 has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee; the Science, Space and Technology Committee; and the Energy and Commerce Committee.

While LNG could be an alternative for mainly fleet vehicles, the infrastructure plan needs to be expanded before it’s an option for small-business truckers.

“This bill will be the legislative vehicle to replace millions of barrels of imported oil with domestic natural gas, especially for fleet vehicles,” according to the Pickens Plan.

Here is a bit more information on the Act. 

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Earlier this week we saw the story on how stock funds investing in alt energy saw a 13.7% return for the first quarter, but today there's a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance that investments in clean energy fell by more than a third for the first quarter. Reduced European incentives and low natural gas prices are to blame apparently. Something seems like it's not adding up, but maybe that's why I'm a regulatory lawyer and not a finance attorney...

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

Nashville is working to keep 22,000 acres of land open for parks and greenways in the years to come.  The city rolled out a plan on Thursday that calls for adding 6,000 acres of parkland by 2035.  Click here for the 25-year Nashville Open Space Plan. 

By Lena Babaeva Coradini

To help promote investments in energy efficiency and low carbon building technologies, the United States State Department – through its League of Green Embassies affiliate – is working to reduce the environmental impact of U.S. embassy buildings around the world.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, US ambassador to Finland Bruce Oreck, who also leads the League of Green Embassies, said that a number of embassies from other countries had also joined the group, while others had expressed interest in adopting the best practices established by the League.

In addition to reducing the energy bills and carbon footprint of diplomatic buildings, the group is aiming to promote green buildings and low carbon technologies to businesses and other areas of government.

"The diplomatic world is a space where we are engaged in conversations at a high level, so there is an opportunity to bypass the bureaucracy and start to deliver real action," Oreck explained. "We are providing a great platform to show off new technology and new models, and demonstrate that we are committed to these issues."

According to Oreck, embassies from six different nations have already joined the group with a number of others also expressing an interest in the initiative. Those signing up receive help setting environmental targets and advice on how to implement green building technologies, including systems developed in their own country which they can then use as a showcase.

Speaking of green buildings, there's been considerable growth with respect to green buildings in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding region.