Tag Archives: green

Fossil Fuels Useless, Two New Green Fuels

Fossil fuels are archaic and I like it when I read about new forms of capturing and storing energy. Here are two new green fuels that are getting attention.

Converting construction waste to hydrogen: Bill Davis of Ze-Gen described his company’s approach to the problem of municipal waste. Each year, the US produces about four billion metric tons of waste that, thanks to the various hydrocarbons in it, actually has about half the energy content as the same weight of coal. Most of that material gets put in landfills, where some of it winds up metabolized into methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Ze-Gen has found a way to liberate hydrogen gas from that waste.
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Forget green, solar goes Bloo: Right now, there are many competing approaches to photovoltaic technology, but only one of them made an appearance at the meeting: Bloo Solar, which is working on what it calls a third-generation solar brush. Larry Bowden, the company’s CEO, described it as a solution to two of the biggest inefficiencies in solar power: photons that don’t get absorbed and electrons that don’t get transferred to the conducting portions of the device, where they’re put to use.

Financial Reason to Green Your Business

Being green is good, and it’s even better when being a green business brings in more green.

Creative Finance Options Abound
There are numerous ways to gather the resources to make onsite projects happen. Thanks to the grid, energy service companies can provide some or all of the financing needed. The grid also enables creative partnerships. For example, in partnership with Xcel Energy, Colorado’s Aspen Skiing Company recently financed $1.1 million for a 147-kilowatt solar energy array. Of the energy produced, a third goes to a local school, and two-thirds is sold back to the grid, with profits given to Aspen Skiing Company.
There is a good chance you will find financing for onsite renewable energy projects by exploring partnerships with foundations or exploring funding available in carbon markets for carbon-offsets projects.

Big Money for Big Climate

No matter how the economy is doing, it’s always nice to see investors calling for lots of green investments.

Global institutional investors holding more than $6 trillion in assets pushed policymakers Tuesday to quickly hash out a binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean technology.

More than 130 big investors, including London Pensions Fund Authority, want countries to agree to reduce the climate- warming emissions by 50 percent to 80 percent by 2050.

Morgan Solar Invents New Way to Capture Sun

A couple months ago I met Nicolas Morgan at the Toronto Green Drinks and he was telling me about this little company he has with his brother that will revolutionize the solar energy industry. When he described the technology and where it came from it sounded like the news was a little too good. It’s great to see that Morgan Solar is getting good press coverage about how their simple way of capturing sunbeams will help the developing world.

Following through on a lifelong goal, Jean Paul then went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo where he handled logistics and construction projects for Doctors Without Borders. To him, the work was loaded with meaning, and while he returned a year later, he spoke of going back to continue with the cause.

That’s when his father, Eric Morgan, stepped in. He talked his son out of going back, arguing that if he really wanted to help people he had an obligation to use his smarts to solve bigger problems.

Jean Paul stepped up to the challenge. While working as a research associate at the Catholic University of Chile (where his family has roots), he decided that the best place to focus on was energy.

“I came to realize electricity was a fundamental human right and if you don’t have electricity you’re living in the dark ages,” he recounts. “I decided there to devote my life to the problem of developing inexpensive, ubiquitous electricity. Solar was the obvious choice.”

At first, Jean Paul looked for solar companies he might like to work for, but after researching the market he quickly found there was a technology gap that needed to be filled. Most of the solar-system designs that appealed to him were clumsy and complicated. He decided his goal should be to come up with a novel design that eliminates that complexity.

Thanks to Shea for the tip to the article!

UN Sees Green Jobs as the Future

A new report from the UN says that the future will be filled with green jobs.

The report, ‘Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World’, was commissioned and funded by the UN’s Environment Programme (Unep).
It says the manufacture, installation and maintenance of solar panels should add 6.3 million jobs by 2030, while wind power should add more than two million jobs.
Major opportunity
Unep director Achim Steiner said that if the world did not transform to a low-carbon economy it would “miss a major opportunity for the fast tracking of millions of new jobs”.
The report was written before the current global economic crisis.
However, Mr Steiner said that to ditch green energy policies because of the crisis would be a mistake because in the long term the new jobs will make economies stronger and help make goods with less oil and gas.