At the end of last month, government officials, architects, urban planners and researchers representing 71 nations converged on San Francisco for the 7th International Ecocity Conference, the Ecocity World Summit 2008. Staff writer Stacey Meinzen and I attended day one of the conference, which was held at the Nob Hill Masonic Center. In an upcoming series of Power Plug posts, we’ll link to video of presentations we found especially informative and inspiring.

Greening the Capitol

Amid the rancor that marks the congressional debate over appropriate legislative remedies to tackle climate change, what’s often lost on our lawmakers is that solutions exist, and they’re simpler than they might think.

Perhaps, to start, members of Congress should pay more attention to changes under way in their own offices. Dan Beard, the chief administrative officer of the U.S. House of Representatives, used his Ecocity talk to brief attendees on the “Green the Capitol” initiative. Stacey wrote about this ambitious program, which was initiated by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a post earlier this year (Power Plug, 1/3/08). Conveniently, Beard’s talk serves as a comprehensive update to Stacey’s January post.

Watch and be amazed as Beard punctures the inflated balloon that is Congress’ misplaced fear of economic doom wrought by combating climate change with his description of the Capitol’s systematic greening.

In the most recent issue of e-Newswire, staff writer Stacey Meinzen wrote about a no-money-down solar lease offered by SolarCity to residents of San Jose through July 31.

Yesterday, a representative from SolarCity sent me an update announcing that the company was extending the same no-down-payment SolarLease (PDF, 49 KB) deal to the majority of its California service area.

2.09-kW SolarCity PV installation on a home in Mountain View, CA (Photo: SolarCity)

Under the program, SolarCity assesses a homeowner’s electricity consumption and recommends a appropriately-sized photovoltaic (PV) system. For example, the company says a homeowner with a $150 monthly electricity bill can install a 2.4-kilowatt PV system for $0 down that would lower his or her monthly electricity bill to $40. The homeowner’s monthly lease payments to SolarCity of approximately $90 would be offset by the $110 monthly reduction in their electricity bill.

For more information, visit the SolarCity website, or call 1-888-SOL-CITY.

Although much of the U.S. economy is currently suffering, the green sector is enjoying growth while offering opportunities to lift people out of poverty. The Oakland Green Jobs Corps and Green for All campaigns, for example, are recruiting at-risk youth, training them for and helping to place them in green apprenticeships and employment. Providing peace of mind to workers and lawmakers alike, the jobs entail tasks that cannot be outsourced offshore — installing solar panels and wind turbines, and weatherizing homes and office buildings.

“We call it green pathways out of poverty — connect the people who most need the work with the work that most needs to be done,” Van Jones, founder of the Oakland Green Jobs Corps and the national Green for All campaign, recently told the Oakland Tribune.

Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities outlines local strategies for developing green-collar job initiatives and pathways out of poverty

Last year, Jones helped U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi draft a bill for Congress, which passed as part of the 2007 energy bill (Power Plug, 12/18/07), that included $125 million for green-collar job training.

Jones has the attention of influential politicians outside California’s Bay Area as well. On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and former candidate John Edwards have all talked about providing green-collar job training programs. Clinton co-sponsored the U.S. Senate version of the green-collar jobs amendment that landed in the 2007 energy bill. And, in February 2008, while campaigning in the manufacturing belt of the Midwest, Obama proposed a 10-year, $150-million green-collar jobs program.

Despite the global credit crunch, investment continues to pour into the renewable energy sector. Worldwide investment in clean technologies, renewable energy and energy efficiency grew 60% last year to $148 billion, according to figures published in February by New Energy Finance Summit, in London. According to Jones, the question is, “Will the new green wave lift all boats?”

If Jones has his way, it will do just that.

• Read more: Download Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities (PDF, 1.5 MB) by the Apollo Alliance, Green for All, Center for American Progress and Center for Wisconsin Strategy

If the per-unit costs of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are to come down, major purchasers (i.e., government) will need to play a role. Recognizing this, North Carolina-based LED manufacturer Cree last year created the “LED City” campaign (Power Plug, 2/14/07), which now includes Raleigh, North Carolina, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Austin, Texas, and Toronto, Ontario, to engage local governments.

Last week, Cree launched a new initiative dubbed “LED University” to make use of the technical expertise — and purchasing power — of universities worldwide. The first schools to sign up are North Carolina State University, Marquette University, the University of Arkansas, Tianjin Polytechnic University, in China, and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

The universities agreed to evaluate and use LED lighting in offices, dorms, parking garages, and along campus walkways and streets. Each of the universities is undertaking pilot projects to track the cost and energy savings from a switch to LEDs.

North Carolina State University installed LED recessed lighting from Cree in the chancellor’s office and a dormitory, and is adding Beta LED fixtures to campus parking garages. Marquette University installed EverLED (e-Newswire, 10/31/07) T8 fluorescent tube lighting replacements from LED Dynamics in an administrative office, and is installing LED recessed and task lighting. The University of Arkansas installed in the chancellor’s residence the first of nearly 1,700 recessed LED lights planned for the campus. And Tianjin Polytechnic University installed 1,500 LED street lights on the campus’ main roadway.

LED recessed lighting in the chancellor’s office at North Carolina State University (Photo: NCSU/LEDs Magazine)

Here in California, UCSB’s involvement with LED University comes as no surprise. The campus is home to the Solid State Lighting and Display Center, which is co-directed by Shuji Nakamura, one of the world’s leading LED researchers (e-Newswire, 6/28/06). And Flex Your Power (e-Newswire, 4/02/08), among others, has recognized UCSB for its extensive energy-saving efforts.

For its LED University project, UCSB installed a test string of nearly two-dozen LEDs from Beta LED in street lights along a campus road. Officials say the LED fixtures have slashed electricity consumption by 44%. Now, UCSB is considering installing LEDs in street lights campus-wide.

LED street lights on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara (Photo: UCSB/LEDs Magazine)

The California Clean Tech Open is calling all early-stage clean technology companies and individuals with great ideas to compete for prizes in its third annual competition.

This year’s competition will give awards collectively valued at more than $600,000 to start-ups in six technology categories: renewable energy, transportation, smart power, energy efficiency, green building and air/water/waste management. Finalists can participate in six months of mentorship and networking exercises including business-process workshops, technology symposia and presentations.

Winners in each of the six categories will receive a “$100,000 Start-Up in a Box” prize package that includes all of the business essentials necessary to help take an innovative clean technology idea from concept to sustainable business. Each category prize includes $50,000 cash from one of the category prize sponsors and in-kind business services, including office space, and legal, financial and marketing services, worth an additional $50,000.

To learn more about California Clean Tech Open alumni, see e-Newswire and Power Plug posts on winners from the 2006 and 2007 competitions. Those winners are gaining a foothold in the marketplace. Clean Tech Open officials say that competitors from the past two years have so far raised $45 million in venture capital.

Interested clean tech entrepreneurs must submit an application and three-page executive summary of their clean technology idea at www.cleantechopen.com before June 14, 2008.

Yesterday, Mother Jones* released online a special report titled “The Future of Energy.” In their Editors’ Note from the May/June issue of the print magazine, Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery explain why today’s energy crisis, made more urgent by peak oil, climate change and the war in Iraq, is unlike any we’ve faced:

Switching away from fossil energy requires an economic and social transformation at least as great as the Industrial Revolution. And we have to build this new economy on the fumes of the old, hoping that we don’t run out of gas, or ice caps, before we get there. …

Building a new energy economy will require enormous government and private investment. It will involve massive workforce upheaval and possibly physical dislocation. The conservation measures demanded will make victory gardens or Jimmy Carter donning a sweater look like three-day diets. …

Today’s energy crisis is on a different scale. We’re reliant on an ever-more dubious cast of characters to provide us power. And if you think the mortgage meltdown is troubling, wait till the markets discover the real price of carbon and realize that our entire economy is, essentially, built on a planetary accounting fraud.

Along with dispelling some “Clean Energy Myths” and offering a list of “Bright Ideas” (”Solar-Powered Malls” and “Get Your Utility to Use Less Power”), the “The Future of Energy” includes “Power Q&As” with energy experts such as energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins; congressional energy efficiency and renewables champion Rep. Jay Inslee; Climate Progress blogger Joseph Romm and Google “green energy czar” Bill Weihl.

If you can pull yourself away from watching election returns come in from Pennsylvania on April 22, the UC Berkeley Journalism School is hosting a discussion with some of the writers and editors, including Bauerlein, who contributed to “The Future of Energy.” The free event runs from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the journalism school’s North Gate Library.

*Editor’s Note: I served as an Editorial Intern and Editorial Fellow for Mother Jones from December 2001 - July 2002.

Fort Drum, a U.S. Army base in upstate New York, now contains the world’s largest collection of solar air-heated buildings, with 50 SolarWall systems on 27 buildings that collectively generate over 4 megawatts (MW) of peak thermal energy. According to base officials, the SolarWall systems will prevent the release of 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide and save 44 billion BTU/h annually.

SolarWall uses a patented transpired solar collector developed by Conserval Engineering to heat air headed for ventilation ducts. Ventilation heating is typically one of the largest single energy requirements for large buildings such as the vehicle maintenance garages, warehouses and hangars at Fort Drum.

SolarWall systems installed at Fort Drum in upstate New York (Photo: Conserval Engineering Inc.)

In 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commissioned a multi-million dollar program to retrofit the 27 buildings. The next year, engineers identified SolarWall one of two cost-effective technologies suited to heating large military buildings.

Eight other U.S. military bases have deployed the SolarWall, including Fort Carson, Norfolk Naval Base, Fort Huachuca, Buckley Air Force Base, Fort Lewis, Peterson Air Force Base and, here in California, Edwards Air Force Base.

• Read more about Fort Drum’s SolarWall project (PDF, 443 KB)

Idaho-based Solar Roadways has developed a road system that combines a durable and translucent glass road surface with PV solar collectors that could be wired directly into the electricity grid, reports RenewableEnergyWorld.com.

Electrical engineer Scott Brusaw says he was inspired to start Solar Roadways when he heard Caltech solar energy expert Nate Lewis suggest that covering just 1.7% of continental U.S. land surface with photovoltaic (PV) solar collectors could produce enough power to meet the nation’s total energy demand. After realizing that the interstate highway system already covers about that much of the nation’s land surface, Brusaw began designing the system.

Artist’s rendering of Scott Brusaw’s solar roadway (Illustration: Dan Walden)

On the solar roadway, each solar road panel consists of three basic layers:

• The road surface layer is translucent and high-strength yet rough enough to provide traction. Penn State University’s Materials Research Institute and the University of Dayton’s Research Institute have been approached about developing this top layer.
• The electronics layer contains a large array of cells, the bulk of which contain solar collecting cells with LEDs for “painting” the road surface. These cells also contain “Super” caps that store the sun’s energy for later use. Each solar road panel can heat itself in northern climates to eliminate snow and ice accumulation.
• The base plate layer distributes the captured solar power and data signals (phone, TV, Internet, etc.) to all homes and businesses connected to the solar roadway. The University of Idaho’s civil engineering faculty have met with Solar Roadways about development of this layer.

Brusaw is developing a working prototype along a 45-mile stretch of road between the Idaho cities of Coeur D’Alene and Sandpoint, and the company says that it has four interested investors at this time.

For more about how renewables can be deployed along our roadways, read “Roadside Renewables” (Power Plug, 1/11/08) and “Clever New System Uses Asphalted Roads to Collect Solar Energy for Heating” (Power Plug, 12/17/07).

Pat Conlon, Palm Desert’s director of energy management, says that the variable-speed pool pump is the most cost-effective tool the city has in its energy-cutting portfolio (Photo: Flickr)

Palm Desert city officials are entering the second year of a partnership program with Southern California Edison (SCE) and Southern California Gas Company. The program — considered unprecedented when conceived in 2005 — has begun to draw national attention and praise for Palm Desert, including coverage in The Wall Street Journal. Power Plug Editor Justin Gerdes first wrote about the Palm Desert project for our sister newsletter, e-Newswire, in January 2007, and he posted an update on the city’s progress on this blog in August of that year.

K Kaufmann a writer for the Palm Springs-based Desert Sun has been tracking the city’s progress as well, and he recently published an update on Palm Desert’s success. Here are some highlights:

• The city achieved 72% of the kilowatt-hour (kWh) reductions it set for the first year and 13% of the total five-year goal of about 215 million kWh.
• Residents replaced more than 1,400 light bulbs with energy-efficient CFLs the city distributed for free. The CFLs knocked about 66,900 kWh and $10,000 off home energy bills.
• Close to 500 homeowners installed new energy-efficient air conditioning systems, cutting their energy use a collective 1.1 million kWh.
• The city also worked with Palm Desert’s 23 golf courses to improve their pumping systems and has saved 376,000 kWh so far.

Missing the energy savings target set for 2007 prompted the city and utilities to adopt a more aggressive tack this year, Kaufmann writes. SCE recently announced that it’s removing the $1,400 cap on rebates Palm Desert residents could receive. Rebates available under the program range from $30 for ENERGY STAR qualified dishwashers to $1,400 for new air conditioning systems.

As part of the renewed energy savings push, the partners are undertaking a number of other measures, including:

• Pool pumps: This city pilot program would create a one-call system for residents to order new energy-efficient pool pumps.
• Behavioral change: SCE is looking at sending consumers customized notices on their energy use, showing them how they compare to other customers, to spark changes in energy consumption.
• Financing: The city is pushing Assembly Bill 811 (Power Plug, 1/25/08), sponsored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), which would create a financing program that provides residents with low-interest loans for energy-efficient home improvements and solar photovoltaic systems and allows a long-term payback schedule linked to property tax payments. The bill passed the Assembly in January and is now under review in the Senate.

UTC Power, the fuel cell division of United Technologies, is getting ready to launch a phosphoric acid fuel cell system for commercial properties that it says will deliver power at a lower cost than the grid.

UTC Power President Jan van Dokkum recently told BusinessGreen that the company’s new fixed-location combined heat and power (CHP) fuel cell costs the same as previous versions — around $1 million to buy and install — but delivers double the power (400 kW compared to 200 kW) and lasts twice as long. In addition, design changes have enabled mass production of the unit to lower production costs.

The PureCell Model 200 power solution will be replaced with a system that produces double the power and lasts twice as long (Photo: UTC Power)

The company claims that their fuel cell system can generate electricity that costs $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), making it competitive with power from the grid, which costs between $0.08 and $0.19 per kWh in the U.S.

Van Dokkum says that the system is cheaper than the grid for between 40% and 60% of energy-intensive buildings with a high level of demand for power and heat, and that the top candidates will be supermarkets, hotels, data centers, hospitals and manufacturing plants. He also points to its commercial viability with company plans to manufacture 250 units a year over the next three years.

The system runs on natural gas, which does mean carbon emissions. However, UTC Power says that the very high electricity conversion efficiency of the fuel cell and improvements in capturing waste heat mean that 90% of the energy going into the system is used — compared to an efficiency of around 32% for the U.S. grid. The result is a reduction in carbon emissions of around 50% for the same level of power generation. Van Dokkum said that should supplies of hydrogen become more plentiful the fuel cell could be easily adapted to run without any emissions.

• Read more: “Engineers Create Fuel Cell That Runs on Wastewater” (e-Newswire, 10/27/04)