HEADLINES

GE Energy Enters Contracts To Supply 750 Wind Turbines

North American Windpower

by NAW Staff on Tuesday 20 September 2011 GE Energy says it has signed new contracts for 750 1.6 MW turbines for wind farms in North America and South America over the next two years. According to GE, the 1.6 MW wind turbine was launched in May and ...

New Jersey overtakes Calif. in commercial solar power

USA Today (blog)

The commercial solar market in New Jersey (aka "The Garden State") jumped 170% from the first quarter of this year to the second quarter, said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. ...
 
GM to Build Electric Cars in China, Protect Chevy Volt Technology

Fox News

AP SHANGHAI – General Motors Co. agreed Tuesday to deepen cooperation with its flagship Chinese partner on development of electric vehicle knowhow amid pressure from Beijing to hand over proprietary technology. Investments and other details of the plan ...
 
‘The Solar And Wind Expo Massachusetts’ Coming To Marlborough In Nov
Marlborough Patch
 

The Solar and Wind Expo Massachusetts’ will take place at the Royal Plaza Trade Center in Marlborough, November 4-6, 2011. Held across the country, the Expo will expose Bay State consumers to the exciting possibility of getting energy from nature.

New York authorities offer $150m for renewable energy projects

BrighterEnergy.org

Authorities in New York are making $150 million available for renewable energy projects, funded by the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard program. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the state's Public Service ...


Constellation/Exelon deal: Reliability should be the main concern

Baltimore Sun

Now Constellation is trying to sell itself to Exelon of Chicago, and Mr. O'Malley's administration is again opposing the deal — but for different reasons than before. A consultant for the Maryland Energy Administration did mention that the $100 rate ...
 
Green jobs are real and growing, Says DOE

REVE

The US Department of Energy (DOE) appears to be trying to raise its voice over a chorus declaring green jobs as a bust and clean energy as a scam. According to the department, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman on Thursday plans to publicly ...

"The Myth of Green Jobs" is a Myth in Itself

A solar panel Installation

Green jobs and renewable energy have been the target of some economists and commentators since the mid nineteen nineties, but within the last several years their attacks have intensified. As states throughout the country begin to implement Renewable Portfolio Standards and participate in programs such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the northeast, some think tanks have assailed the idea of the green economy as being waste of money or, worse yet, being destructive to “real” jobs. It takes little more than a quick internet search to find organizations like the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and the American Petroleum Institute who routinely seek to smear renewable energy and green jobs as a boondoggle.

Reading through their reports, it begs the question: “What is a green job?”

If you read the assortment of editorials from IER or from such newspapers as the Wall Street Journal you will be led to believe that a green job is a manufacturing job. This is because these reports almost always stick with three examples: SpectraWatt, Evergreen Solar and Solyndra who are now bankrupt. These three companies, all of whom were manufacturers of solar photovoltaic technology, were also the recipients of various forms of government aid. This, they argue, is proof positive of the hollow promise of green jobs. Green jobs are nonexistent without government aid and even with that aid, they inevitably disappear due to their inherent infeasibility.

This approach is the equivalent of arguing that because an automobile company goes bankrupt, the idea of the automobile itself is unviable. If we take the panel manufactures out of the context of the solar industry and justly place them as part of the greater US manufacturing picture, their failure is sadly par for the course. The same external market forces that put them out of business are hurting many American manufacturers; a drop in the price of raw materials and cheap labor competition from China.

Green jobs are everywhere

Hardly mentioned in those same reports are the thousands of green jobs aside from manufacturing. Across the country solar installation companies are growing. They range from large corporations with offices in many states to small family operations composed of husband and wife teams. Every one of them is a green job. The same can be said of wind turbine installers, geothermal contractors, energy auditors, biomass refiners, hydroelectric engineers and the list goes on and on. These companies have an office staff, a supply chain and salespeople. Every one of them is a green job. Even I, sitting here doing what I can to promote renewable energy, am in a green job.

The notion that only government is willing to invest capital in renewable energy is also a fallacy. Google has invested in Solar City, Citigroup has partnered with Sungevity and Constellation Energy has invested in Astrum Solar to name a few. These are all American companies investing in American companies to help them grow. All of them produce green jobs.

We can argue about the wisdom (or lack thereof) in the government’s investments in Evergreen or Solyndra until we are blue in the face, but they are not the be-all-end-all. Companies looking to lose market shares to this new power have a vested interest in disparaging renewable energy. They are trying to convince people that the old ways are still the best ways. The truth is that the sun will still be shining and the wind will still be blowing long after the last drop of oil and last unit of gas has been wrung from the Earth. The green economy and its green jobs - its “real” jobs - are here to stay.

by Richard Harrod


HEADLINES

BMW's Rolls-Royce shows electric concept car

The Associated Press

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — In yet another sign that car manufacturers are really trying to go greener, Rolls-Royce is experimenting with an electric vehicle. The mega-luxurious brand has kicked off a presentation by parent company BMW AG at the ...
 
Quick-Charging Plus Better Batteries Equals Mainstream Electric Cars

PluginCars.com

It happened 100 years ago, when the advent of the self-starter ushered in the age of internal combustion—and killed electric cars. Now, a low-cost quick charger, capable of adding as much as 100 miles of range in the time it takes to have a cup of ...
 
Electric vehicles could help store NW wind power

KPLU News for Seattle and the Northwest

Researchers have found a way to use electric vehicles to help balance wind power's inconsistency. For the power grid to work, the same amount of power must be produced as the amount that people are using at any given moment. ...
 
Department of Energy Sanctions Grant to Identify and Develop Geothermal Energy ...

AZoCleantech

By Cameron Chai Steven Chu, US Energy Secretary has declared a grant of around $38 million for a period of three years to speed up the development of potential geothermal energy expertise and to assist the country to diversify its renewable energy ...
 
US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam Add Solar Panels
Solar Novus Today

Visitors landing on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands will notice a 1600-foot-long array of ground-mounted SolarWorld solar panels paralleling a runway at Cyril E. King Airport. The 450 kilowatt (kW) system, to be unveiled tomorrow, 14 September, ...
 
Duke Energy to Build Second Pennsylvania Wind Farm

Sacramento Bee

Duke Energy Renewables, a commercial business unit of Duke Energy, will build, own and operate the 69-megawatt (MW) Laurel Hill Windpower Project in Lycoming County. The wind farm will consist of 30 Siemens wind turbines, each capable of generating 2.3 ...

Rep. Slaughter Encourages Natcore Technology to Locate Facility in Kodak's Business Park

Congresswoman
 Louise Slaughter

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (NY-28) has announced that negotiations are under way to bring a New Jersey solar technology company to Kodak's Eastman Business Park, and with it the promise of more green jobs in Rochester.


Slaughter has been working with Natcore Technology Inc. whose technology would enable the manufacture of flexible solar cells that could reduce the cost of making solar panels and the time required to install solar arrays by more than 60%. Based in Red Bank, NJ, Natcore does not have a presence in upstate New York. But seeing that Eastman Business Park would be a perfect fit to meet Natcore's research, development, and manufacturing needs, Slaughter has joined Kodak in trying to establish a future production facility and Natcore's research lab in Rochester.



Eastman Business Park

 "I have been amazed by the solar technology being developed by Natcore because I see the potential it has to make solar energy more efficient and cleaner to produce," said Slaughter. "In Rochester, we are all familiar with the technological expertise and manufacturing knowhow on the Kodak campus. If we can pair their capabilities with the emerging technology being developed by Natcore, we can bring the green jobs of tomorrow to Rochester. I see Natcore and Kodak to be an ideal fit and I'm happy to do everything I can to bring these companies together."

On the heels of President Obama's call in his State of the Union Address to grow U.S. innovation, Slaughter also personally called on the Obama Administration and the U.S. Energy Department to work with Natcore so that it can establish a Rochester manufacturing center. In previous expansion initiatives, Natcore has formed a joint venture with companies in China but Slaughter is encouraging them to manufacture their flexible solar cells in the U.S. so that the technology created in America is manufactured in America.



Natcore President and CEO
 Chuck Provini

 "We are deeply committed to keeping our technology in our own country," says Natcore President and CEO Chuck Provini. "So far it's been difficult to accomplish that. Now Congresswoman Slaughter has injected a burst of energy on our behalf with the White House, the DOE and Kodak. We are deeply grateful for her vision and persistence. Although typically our business plan has us licensing our technology rather than producing the cells ourselves, a joint venture with Kodak might be an exception. Their roll-to-roll photo film production equipment could be easily adapted for our flexible solar cell technology." The details of a Kodak–Natcore undertaking are still to be worked out, according to Provini. At present, Natcore is neither manufacturing nor licensing its technology anywhere.

Kodak is a leader in chemical, thin film, and coating capabilities, all core competencies needed for the production of photovoltaic solar cells.

"No one knows more about manufacturing film products than Kodak," said Mike Alt, Director of Eastman Business Park. "Kodak has developed thin film technology that is directly applicable to the next generation of photovoltaic panels. At Eastman Business Park, we have the technical resources, development and pilot tools, and the manufacturing capacity to accelerate the commercialization of new technologies, such as Natcore's roll-to-roll solar cell process."

Natcore may also establish an R&D lab at Eastman Business Park where it would accelerate its development of tandem solar cells using Natcore's proprietary liquid phase technology. These super-efficient cells could yield twice the power output of today's most efficient solar cells.

Due to Slaughter's intervention, Department of Energy officials are meeting with Natcore to assess possible programs to help fund the development of a manufacturing operation at Eastman Business Park.

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