Archive for the 'Green Industry' Category

Solar Overtaking Coal Power As Less Expensive, Cleaner

by Editors @ Tuesday, August 24th, 2010. Filed under Environment, Green Industry

Breakthrough - Solar Now Cheaper than Coal

Their mission: to deliver cost-efficient solar electricity. The Nanosolar company was founded in 2002 and is working to build the world's largest solar cell factory in California and the world's largest panel-assembly factory in Germany. They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt.

This makes, for the first time in history, solar power cheaper than burning coal. These coatings are as thin as a layer of paint and can transfer sunlight to power at amazing efficiency. Although the underlying technology has been around for years, Nanosolar has created the actual technology to manufacture and mass produce the solar sheets. The Nanosolar plant in San Jose, once in full production in 2008, will be capable of producing 430 megawatts per year. This is more than the combined total of every other solar manufacturer in the U.S.

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Ohio Solar: Build It, Flip the Switch and Let the Clean Power Flow

by Editors @ Sunday, August 22nd, 2010. Filed under Green Industry, High Road Economics

Largest Solar Field in Ohio is

Dedicated in Wyandot County,

Panels built in Perrysburg Twp.

Photo

The PSEG Wyandot Solar Farm north of Upper Sandusky has 159,200 solar panels and eight power stations housing transformers and other equipment. It is about 65 miles south of Toledo. ( SPECIAL TO THE BLADE/REBECCA CROSS )

 

By JULIE M. McKINNON
BLADE STAFF WRITER

UPPER SANDUSKY - In the same two Wyandot County-owned fields where crops once grew stands a $44 million solar farm that even on overcast days can produce power for 4,500 houses - an amount that doubles on sunny days.

And three-month-old PSEG Wyandot Solar Farm north of Upper Sandusky gives employees of First Solar Inc.'s factory in Perrysburg Township a chance to glimpse thin-film solar panels they build in action when visiting co-worker Dan Williamson of nearby McCutchenville.

"They just love seeing our end product, a working solar field," said Mr. Williamson, an eight-year First Solar veteran who works in maintenance.

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Getting Beyond Fossil Fuels: Europeans Going for Solar, Renewables

by Editors @ Friday, August 20th, 2010. Filed under Green Industry, High Road Economics
Solar panels at a plant in Freiberg, Germany. Germany is the world’s largest solar market
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Europe’s Brisk Energy Transition
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

SolidarityEconomy.net via Bloomberg News

Europe’s evolution toward a heavier reliance on renewable energy is nicely documented in a report released this week by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. The study, “Statistical Aspects of the Energy Economy in 2009,” provides a wealth of interesting detail without a lot of editorializing.

From 2008 to 2009 alone, the use of renewable energy in the European Union increased 8.3 percent. As I’ve reported as part of our continuing series, “Beyond Fossil Fuels,” some countries have made particularly great strides in this arena. Portugal now gets nearly 45 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, up from 17 percent five years ago.

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10,000 New Jobs? Breakthrough on Electric Car Production

by Editors @ Saturday, May 22nd, 2010. Filed under Green Industry, High Road Economics

Toyota-Tesla Deal Adds Green

Spark to Electric Car Industry

Adam Hadhazy
TechNewsDaily Staff Writer

livescience.com

May 21, 2010 -In a move that may provide a spark for the electric automobile industry, Toyota, the world's largest automaker, is teaming up Tesla Motors Inc, the makers of the only highway-legal all-electric car in the United States.

The companies announced a deal yesterday in which Tesla will buy a defunct Toyota plant in California where it will produce the model S, an electric sedan slated for 2012.

Toyota, meanwhile, will buy $50 million worth of Tesla stock, and the two companies announced Thursday that they will work together to develop new electric vehicle technologies and refine manufacturing methods.

In this symbiotic business deal, Tesla will likely benefit from direct knowledge of Toyota's economy of scale and links to a vast supplier base.

Toyota, for its part, might get a boost in its competition with other carmakers over the growing environmentally friendly vehicle marketplace. Tesla's advanced lithium-ion batteries, for example, might steer the way for Toyota as the Japanese automaker looks to replace the older nickel-metal hydride units found in its hybrid Prius.

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Tough Battle Ahead on Green Jobs and Climate Crisis

by Editors @ Sunday, May 16th, 2010. Filed under Environment, Green Industry, High Road Economics

Good Jobs, Green Jobs 2010:

Using Green Energy Manufacturing

To Solve the Jobs Crisis Is Shaping Up

To Be a Very Tough Battle

 

By Carl Davidson
SolidarityEconomy.Net

Washington DC's DuPont Circle area is best known for foreign embassies and sidewalk cafes and a lively night life. But for three mild and sunny spring days this May 4-6, nearly 3500 people stayed inside the Hilton Hotel for the 2010 'Good Jobs, Green Jobs' conference, trying to solve the country's economic problems and the world's climate change crisis.

This was the third and largest gathering to date on the green jobs theme organized by the Blue-Green Alliance, a coalition of several hundred environmental, community and trade union groups pulled together primarily by the United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club. Last year's gathering of 3000, fresh from Obama's victory and several new recession-fighting initiatives, was highly spirited and visionary.

Now a tough year had passed and the mood had shifted. There was still plenty of idealism and optimism, especially among the younger activists, but many were sobered by the fierce resistance of the GOP and finance capital to any timely or significantly large reforms. Climate change was being denied, clean energy legislation was stalled, stimulus spending for jobs was too small, health insurance reform was barely acceptable, and the wars were dragging on.

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Making Green Jobs Good Jobs

by Editors @ Saturday, April 17th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Green Industry

 

Evergreen Cooperatives

Forge an Innovative Path

To High-Quality Green Jobs

by Andrea Buffa

How can we make sure green jobs are good jobs? One approach to this much discussed question is to make green jobs union jobs, which typically offer higher wages [The idea for the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative came out of a partnership between the Cleveland Foundation and several local hospitals and universities that are situated in the Greater University Circle area of Cleveland, a one-square mile area surrounded by neighborhoods where the unemployment rate is 20-25 percent and 30 percent of the residents are living in poverty. (Photo credit: Janet Century)]and better benefits than non-union jobs. Another is to require that contractors who receive public funding for green projects pay their workers family supporting wages and provide health insurance. In Cleveland, Ohio, a new and different path is being forged toward high-quality, green jobs-through worker-owned cooperatives, where the workers are not only being paid well, but also can accumulate wealth for themselves and their communities as partial owners of profitable green businesses.

The idea for the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative came out of a partnership between the Cleveland Foundation and several local hospitals and universities that are situated in the Greater University Circle area of Cleveland, a one-square mile area surrounded by neighborhoods where the unemployment rate is 20-25 percent and 30 percent of the residents are living in poverty. (Photo credit: Janet Century)

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High-Speed Rail – Why We Need a Green Industrial Policy

by Editors @ Sunday, January 17th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Green Industry, High Road Economics

 

China's High-Speed-Rail Revolution:

Dedicated lines are the key

to record-breaking speeds.

By Peter Fairley
MIT Technology Review

Jan. 11, 2010 - China has begun operating what is, by several measures, the world's fastest rail line: a dedicated 968-kilometer line linking Wuhan, in the heart of central China, to Guangzhou, on the southeastern coast. In trials, the "WuGuang" line trains (locally built variants of Japan's Shinkansen and Germany's InterCity Express high-speed trains) clocked peak speeds of up to 394 kilometers per hour (or 245 miles per hour). They have also recorded an average speed of 312 kph in nonstop runs four times daily since the WuGuang's December 26 launch, slashing travel time from Wuhan to Guangzhou from 10.5 hours to less than three.

WuGuang's speed blows away the reigning champion: France's TGV, which runs from Lorraine to Champagne and averages 272 kph. It also bests China's first high-speed train, the Beijing-to-Tianjin trains that average 230 kph, as well as Shanghai's magnetically levitated airport shuttle trains that can hit 430 kph but average less than 251 kph.

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