Last week PG&E announced that it had signed two deals for a total of 800MW of photo-voltaic solar power.

One is with High Plains Ranch II, LLC, a subsidiary of SunPower Corporation, for 250 MW of solar power. The other is with Topaz Solar Farms LLC, a subsidiary of OptiSolar, for 550 MW more.

As we commented last week, solar power is currently a very small part of the power mix for PG&E, and in fact for the state of California as a whole, contributing less than 1% today. Investments like these two will go some way to turning that around, and making better use of that environmentally sound solar energy that warms and lights the state every day.

BioBag makes a range of bio-degradable, compostable plastic bags from corn. Bags that you can use for your kitchen waste, cleaning up after your pets or even storing your vegetables in the fridge since they breathe without leaking.

Supermarket Bags
If you own a store that uses plastic shopping bags, why not switch to BioBag shopping bags? You’ll be able to do something good for the environment, without needing to persuade your customers to change their habits! If you work for a store, try suggesting to your employer that they switch to these greener bags.

Composting System
In addition to making compostable bags, BioBags also has a solution to help make composting your organic kitchen waste a little easier, and odour free.

[Via The Daily Green]

Amazon Green, a new store from Amazon, focuses on listing environmentally friendly products. Included already are eco-friendly cleaning products, EnergyStar approved lighting products and office electronics.

Currently, they’re also asking customers for their Green 3 products: the three green products that they wish everybody had. The current top three are reusable shopping bags and a couple of different CFL bulbs (fourth is a push reel lawn mower).

So, you’ve heard the buzz about switching to CFL to reduce your energy consumption, and in doing so help the environment and save you some money on your electricity bill. You might even have seen some of the funny coiled bulbs in stores.

But how do you know which ones to get to replace your existing incandescent bulbs?

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of articles about T. Boone Pickens, the man behind the Pickens Plan in the green media yesterday:

• Earth2Tech is asking about the reported loss from Pickens’ natural gas company, Clean Energy Fuels. A little unfair in the headline perhaps since the company has improved relative to the same quarter last year, and is showing increased revenues too.
• Energy Power Alternatives asks “T Boone Pickens – Visionary Or Profiteer?” Looking at the details of the plan, they seem to be concluding that the main component of the plan is the switch to natural gas for automotive use. It goes on to say that the wind energy component, which at best would supply 20% of the needs of the US, is included to “make his proposal politically more attractive.”

Interesting to see that neither of the articles have anything to say about his water project in Texas, and the controversy surrounding that project and the motives for the wind energy being to make it simpler for him to run a pipeline for his water project that we reported on a while back.

If Dr. Lyle Dennis’ website is to be believed, over 35,000 people have already expressed an interest in GM’s hybrid Volt, not due to launch until November 2010. While the Volt is perhaps not as striking as the Tesla roadster, nor as fast, it is much more likely to be affordable.

Read the rest of this entry »

Glenn Fleishman (of Wi-Fi Net News and TidBITS fame) has a good write up over at WorldChanging on the Green Plug solution to the phantom power problem.

Their solution is based on an the idea of standardising the power connector that is used by electronics on the standard USB connector. They have developed a variant of it for devices like laptops that need more power than a regular USB connector can deliver. This seems like a smart move since that connector is already becoming a de facto standard for low power electronics like cameras, phones etc. Additionally, USB power outlets are appearing on aircraft and even in airport lounges now, allowing people to power and recharge their small devices easily with just a cable.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yao Ming, the 7′6″ tall Chinese basketball player who plays for the Houston Rockets, has been named “Environment Champion” by the United Nations.

The Daily Green article goes on to say that Ming has pledged to “work with young people around the world to raise awareness about green issues and to try to inspire them to plant trees, use energy-efficient light bulbs, harvest rain water and personally advocate for a healthier environment.”

As he represents his home country in the Beijing Olympic Games, Ming said “as the world celebrates the Beijing Olympic Games, I would also like to call upon the organizers of all major sports events in the world to make sure they use public transport facilities, build proper waste management systems and use greener forms of energy.”

Attention to the environment has been a key part of the 2008 Beijing games.

California utility companies are required to provide Power Content Labels to their customers letting them know the mix of power sources in the electricity that they use. Here in Alameda we have our own city owned utility, Alameda Power and Telecom, that provides a relatively clean mix of power. Other parts of California, including our immediate neighbours here in the SF bay area, don’t do so well.

The table below shows the projected 2008 mixes for PG&E and Alameda, alongside the 2007 mix for the whole state. As you can see, Alameda Power & Telecom is doing a pretty good job of using renewables (79% total when you include the large hydroelectric mix), whereas PG&E, one of the largest electricity utilities in the state, is still reliant on natural gas and nuclear power.

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, you’re not literally going to be driving your car on tequila; instead this is about using ethanol made from the agave cactus. According to CleanTechnica, using the agave to produce ethanol might make more sense than using corn, or even sugar cane.

It is a little unclear from their article whether the 2,000 gallons/acre annually figure is from cellulosic ethanol, or if that would further improve the yield. Either way though, agave makes much more sense than corn as a source of plant based ethanol. It is happy growing in harsh wasteland areas (and actually improves the soil quality where it grows); it needs very little water and it grows without fertilizers (protecting the local drinking water from pollution). It’s also not “stealing” a food crop to make fuel.

Perhaps ethanol can become a viable fuel for the US market – let’s just hope the availability of margaritas is not affected.