If You Build It, Will They Charge?

Source: NYTimes

A transition to electric cars isn’t just a matter of the cars, but also of the infrastructure that goes with them, including public charging stations. The Electric Power Research Institute and the Tennessee Valley Authority plan to cut the ribbon on Tuesday on a prototype of a new kind of charging station, one that uses solar cells and batteries. But they do not work together in quite the way the public might expect.

The initial installation has six parking stalls, one of them extra wide for handicapped drivers, with carport roofs covered with solar panels. There are three refrigerator-size battery packs in a building that is heated and air-conditioned.

Under the program, called the TVA Smart Station Initiative, such charging stations are described as “solar assisted” because the panels generate only 12 kilowatts at noon on a sunny day, and the charging stations, when in use, draw 3.3 kilowatts for each vehicle, for a total of nearly 20 kilowatts. Cars will go three or four miles on a kilowatt-hour, and in Tennessee, where all of the charging stations will be installed, the cells atop each space will make enough electricity to move a car about 7,000 miles a year, according to John W. Halliwell, a senior project manager at the institute’s research center in Knoxville.

Yet for much of the time, electricity from the cells will flow to the grid because no car will be there to charge. And to recharge the cars, the system draws power from the grid, so the sun does not have to be shining for a driver to charge up.

The batteries and the solar cells themselves are something like shock absorbers for the grid. If drivers want to charge their cars during peak periods on the grid, the charging station’s batteries will meet part of that demand so that the impact on the grid is milder. Likewise, the solar cells will chip in with some energy, lessening the load on the grid.

“If with new technologies we can control these resources on the distribution side, we can eliminate the need for potentially very expensive upgrades to the distribution system,” said James A. Ellis, the senior manager for transportation and infrastructure at the T.V.A.’s Technology Innovation Organization.

At the Electric Power Research Institute, which will be the site of the first charging stations, Mr. Halliwell said, the various elements could be used in any mix. The batteries, of an advanced lead-acid design, have a usable capacity of 30 kilowatt-hours. They will wear out if they get too hot and will not deliver much current if they get too cold, so one question is how much energy it will take to keep them at a comfortable temperature.

Years from now, Mr. Ellis said, batteries that began their life in electric cars but have lost some of their capacity might be suitable for use at the charging stations. In fact, one function of this program is to determine whether such batteries could be useful, although the batteries to be used in the initial trial are not the sort used in cars.

Researchers say they need to know a lot more about charging stations. Will drivers use them to get a full charge or simply park there for as long as they happen to be in the neighborhood, to add a few miles of range? (At 3.3 kilowatts, a typical car would add about 10 miles of range per hour of charging time.) Where are charging stations most likely to get used? Airports? Universities? Shopping center parking lots?

With the Chevy Volt hybrid and the Nissan Leaf all-electric vehicle just hitting the streets, the question remains open.

Another question is economics: there is no mechanism at the moment for charging the driver for the electricity. Because the project is expected to cost $50,000 to $100,000 per space, some purpose beyond electricity sales will probably be needed to make it work, Mr. Halliwell said.

The institute and the T.V.A. hope to have about 125 parking stalls in place, most of them by the end of this year and mainly in the Knoxville, Nashville and Chattanooga areas.

Whoa!

Pioneer Sees Shift To Electric Cars

Source: AJC

Electric car pioneer Shai Agassi is a man with a startling prediction: Before 2020, he says, more people everywhere will be buying electric cars than those powered by gasoline.

"It doesn't mean that oil is not necessary, but we're starting the way out," said Agassi, a former top executive for information giant SAP AG who launched his Better Place venture several years ago.

Existing electric cars have a limited range, after which owners have to stop and wait for hours while their car's battery recharges. Owners of Agassi's cars would be able to remove the used battery and replace it with a fully charged one, allowing them to get back on the road almost immediately. The first country slated to go live with a network of "battery-switching" stations run by Better Place is his native Israel, where he plans a launch — with 56 stations and an expected 5,000 cars — before the end of 2011. In 2012, Denmark and Australia are expected to join, along with trials in Hawaii and in the San Francisco Bay area.

Brimming with infectious optimism, Agassi has been a regular at the World Economic Forum, where he was interviewed by The Associated Press. Agassi said he has raised about $700 billion and spent about a third of it, mostly on setting up the stations. That leaves enough cash to absorb losses while he builds up to break-even, which Agassi asserts will not take long. "In Israel, in 2016, plus or minus a year, more electric cars will be sold than gasoline cars.

When that happens in Country One, within two years you will see it in every country," he said. That claim may seem preposterous for the car-crazy United States — but not for Israel. The country's electric company also expects electric cars to achieve a significant market share in the near future and is preparing its grid to meet the demand, according to the Haaretz newspaper.



Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has emerged a believer as well. "Israel will become the first country in the world to put 100,000 all-electric cars on the road," he said Thursday. "Not the US. Not China. Not countries much bigger — Israel!" Agassi has found a niche created by a widespread sense that the world is not doing half enough to deal with the eventual end of oil — a prospect hastened by the explosive recent growth in the developing world. "From 2000 to 2010, China added 120 million cars on the road (and) next year, 25 to 30 million," Agassi said. "It's no longer the U.S. that sets the price (of oil). Now it's a question of how many cars were added in China, how many were added in Brazil, how many were added in India." He admits that the market for gas is somewhat inelastic, meaning that despite rising costs at the pump, people grumble and drive on. But they save elsewhere, he says, harming the economy in cascading ways. Agassi plans to sell cars being developed by Renault SA and equipped with removable batteries — which are currently quite heavy and have a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers). Drivers would be promised four battery swapping stations along any route the length of the range.

Although prices have not yet been set, Agassi said the idea would be that the consumer would not pay more to drive a given distance than its current cost using oil. Like any venture that could threaten a mammoth industry, Better Place has generated its share of critics. Some charge the company is trying to establish a new type of monopoly, while environmental groups objected to the laying of new power cables. It is also not clear that Israel's electricity grid can sustain the heightened demand posed by the electric cars. Some say battery-swapping is impractical and customers will prefer a fixed-battery car.

In Davos, Nissan Motor Co. was demonstrating its new Leaf, a fixed-battery electric car that you can charge at home. Agassi is not worried. He says over time, batteries will grow smaller and their ranges will grow longer, making the swap less odious. He is most animated as he refutes criticism that the electricity needed to charge the battery has its own carbon footprint and the net result might be worse for the environment than the internal combustion engine.

The electricity could come from coal but also from natural gas or wind or other sources, he said, adding that the Israeli government has approved a 600-megawatt solar project in the country's southern desert that can power a half-million cars a year.

Is the main thing idealism or profit? Agassi's message combines the two. "The end of the oil era will not come because we ran out of oil — it will come become we don't want to use oil any more to drive," he said. "I can guarantee you that we will finish the need for oil as an energy source for cars before we run out of oil in the ground."

We Are Expanding Our Sales Division

Energy Roofing Systems is in growth mode and is currently expanding the sales division of the company.

We are looking for energetic, determined, and experienced sales representatives located in and around the metro Atlanta area willing to work on a commission-only basis. Earnings are unlimited in this exciting, fast growing marketplace.

Energy Roofing Systems is a leader in helping others adopt greater energy efficiency, both commercial and residential, including metal roofing, lighting, and renewable energy systems.

The primary responsibility of the new sales managers will be lead generation and product sales. This job requires a person capable of presenting products onsite.

All training and training materials will be provided by Energy Roofing Systems.

For more information please visit our website.

Cutting wasteful and environmentally harmful spending

Source: Green Scissors

Green Scissors 2010 identifies more than $200 billion in wasteful government subsidies that are damaging to the environment and harmful to consumers. The report targets four major areas for budget cuts: energy, infrastructure, agriculture and biofuels, and public lands. Each section provides an overview, a summary of the spending cuts and a chart of recommended subsidy cuts. Undoubtedly there are more cuts that could and should be made, but this report is a first step to restoring fiscal sanity while also protecting our environment.

You can download the report here.

East Decatur Station Powers Up With Solar

Source: AJC

East Decatur Station, a mixed-use commercial center at 627 E. College Ave. in Decatur, will hold a "power up" ceremony at 11 a.m. today to launch its elaborate new system of solar panels. A total of 531 photovoltaic panels, arranged across the complex's rooftops and entrance canopies, will feed $32,000 a year of "green electricity" into the city's electric grid, saving 315 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

531 panels is a BIG amount! The current project we are doing in Dawsonville is a 20kW array with 91 panels and it is out largest yet.

Way to go, Decatur!

How One Local Company Decided To Truly Go Green

It all started with an ugly commercial metal roof. Empty, lonely, and unhappy...

We then added some metal rails and other mounting hardware.

They were then secured to the roof to withstand 90+ mph wind.

We then attached some microinverters to keep track of each individual solar panel and measure unique performance. The entire installation process was overseen by 1 of only 10 NABCEP certified solar installers in Georgia.

The brand of microinverters is Enphase. They are THE BEST on the market to date and come with a really useful web-based monitoring service to make sure your panels are always running at max efficiency.

Once the panels arrived we lifted them via forklift to the roof.

The panels were then installed ontop of the racking system at the optimium tilt angle to accept the highest amount of solar sunlight.

Here is another view. The panels are connected together via the racking system and electrical wires and the microinverters.

Here is a closeup of the array. These are American-made panels from Mage.

When the sun sets at the end of the day, our client will see utility savings on average of $614 dollars every month. Over it’s expected 35-year life the 20kW system will generate approximately 1015 RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates) equivalent to offsetting 868 tons of CO2, planting 20,712 trees, or offsetting 27,740 gallons of gasoline. Energy Roofing Systems educated this client on federal, state, and local tax incentives that helped make this project possible. The Federal Clean Energy Grant is covering 30% of the total system cost while the Georgia Clean Energy Tax Credit picks up another 35%. Additionally, local utility provider Sawnee EMC is providing a $3,000 dollar incentive and a guarantee to purchase any excess energy this system generates.

Please visit our website, twitter page, and facebook acount to learn more about our company and our commitment to helping businesses improve their bottom lines by adopting clean, affordable, and renewable energy sources.

Atl Landfill To Be Converted To Solar Farm

Source: AJC

For years, some travelers taking off from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had a clear view of what might be considered an eyesore -- the 48-acre Hickory Ridge landfill in DeKalb County.

Views are about to change.

Republic Services, which owns Hickory Ridge, is closing the landfill and turning it into a solar farm, using $2 million in federal stimulus money, a new kind of solar panel and help from the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority.

When finished this year, it will be one of the biggest single producers of solar power in Georgia and the state's first landfill solar farm, according to both the company and GEFA, which awarded it $2 million in stimulus money last year, after a competitive bid.

"Georgia is a very good state for solar energy," said GEFA spokesman Shane Hix. "We'd like to see this used as an example of what can be done with landfills across the state."

Republic first tried out the technology in San Antonio, at a site a fraction of Hickory's size.

Then it "went looking for larger scale sites," said Republic engineering manager Tony Walker.

Republic wants solar caps to become a legitimate alternative to closing landfills in the usual way, which requires layers of dirt and vegetation on top.

There's a benefit to Republic. The solar landfill cap saves maintenance costs. "It's a landfill closure system that maintains the gas inside, keeps the water out and produces renewable energy," Walker said. "And it's very economical for us."

Environmental groups like the idea, too: "Anytime you add solar, that's a good thing," said Colleen Kiernan, Georgia director for the Sierra Club.

The landfill will be covered first with a liner, a membrane Walker said is tougher than a typical landfill liner. Solar panels will sit on top. Designed by Pennsylvania's Carlisle Energy, the panels are the thickness of two nickels and pliable.

"We don't like to put glass panels on a settling slope that's going to move," Walker said. "We'll have a panel that actually flexes, a panel that won't break."

The panels will also be a dark color so they will not interfere with pilots' views from above.

The company hopes Hickory Ridge -- both because of its size and its visibility -- will become an ambassador for the concept of solar caps on closed landfills.

The site will sell 1 megawatt of power -- enough to power 400 homes -- to Georgia Power.

The utility doesn't pay as much for solar as those in some markets, so "it's not a big money maker for us," Walker said. But "my goal with this was to put solar in areas that weren't very welcoming to solar."

Planning For A Plug-In Electric Vehicle

Solar carports like the one pictured above could play a big role in the plug-in electric vehicle market in the near future.

From Sawnee EMC: Plug-In Electric Vehicles (PEVs) are powered by rechargeable battery packs, which use stored electricity to operate the vehicle. The battery packs can generally be charged from two (2) types of outlets: Level 1 (120 volts) and Level 2 (240 volts). The difference in voltage affects the period of time which the battery is charged. Below is a brief description of the two (2) charging levels for residential use.

Level 1 Charging

Level 1 charging is accomplished by using a standard 120 volt, A/C outlet which is commonly found in a residential setting. PEVs may be plugged into a 120 volt outlet, providing a convenient, "anytime and anywhere" power source.

Depending on the battery size and how far the vehicle was driven (e.g., how low the battery's charge has been reduced), Level 1 charging takes between 8 to 15 hours to fully recharge the vehicle's battery.

Level 1 charging requires a dedicated 15 or 20 Amp outlet in the area where the PEV will be charged.

Level 2 Charging

Level 2 charging is done using a 240 volt, A/C circuit, much like that used for large electric load in your home such as an electric clothes dryer, electric stove or a central HVAC system. Level 2 charging will generally requires a dedicated 240 volt outlet in the location where the vehicle will be charged.

Depending on the battery size and how far the vehicle was driven, Level 2 charging generally takes between 3 to 8 hours to fully recharge a battery, or approximately half the time of a Level 1 charger.

Other Factors to Keep in Mind When Deciding Where to Charge Your PEV

When selecting where to charge your PEV, remember that most residential garages generally do not have a dedicated 240 volt circuit to facilitate the faster (Level 2) charging.

Also, the vehicle manufacturer may specify what Electrical Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) should be used with their vehicle which will determine the exact equipment you should install.

Finally, if the PEV is kept outdoors, special, weather-proof equipment may be needed.

The key here is that charging is an essential component of the safe, reliable and cost effective aspect of operating your PEV and will require a great deal of thought and planning.

NISSAN LEAF:

Priced at $32,000 with a $7,500 dollar federal tax incentive. Buyers of the Nissan Leaf will need to pay an additional $2,200 for the necessary 220/240V charging station and installation. Uncle Sam will throw a $2,000 tax credit your way for that equipment, though.

Starting from a depleted battery, it takes 7 hours to charge using 220/240V (depending on amperage), and about 20 hours using 110/120V. It will take about 30 minutes to charge a battery up to 80% using a 480 volt quick-charge station (these will be introduced in the future and there has been no word on how much one of these super charging stations will cost yet).

Based on a US average of $0.11/kWh, a full charge will cost about $2.75. It could be even less, if your area has time-of-use rates and you charge at off-peak hours.

CHEVY VOLT:

Priced at $40,000 with a $7,500 federal tax incentive.

The Volt's 16 kW·h (10.4 kW·h usable) lithium-ion battery pack can be charged by plugging the car into a 120-240VAC residential electrical outlet.

The 240V Voltec charging station can be purchased for $490 not including installation. Other charging stations are in development but pricing has not been determined.

At 240 V, the Volt will recharge in 3 hours as opposed to 6 hours at 120 V.

At the U.S. average cost of electricity (approximately 11 cents per kWh), a typical Volt driver would pay about $2.75 for electricity to travel 100 miles, or less than 3 cents per mile.

The coming popularity of plug-in electric vehicles is no doubt a good thing for the environment when considering how much greenhouse gas emissions can be decreased as a result of driving a clean, electric vehicle, but are we really gaining anything if the electricity to charge these vehicles comes from dirty energy sources like coal plants?

Powering your garage and your home with a solar array seems like a reasonable solution.

Our Cars Will Soon Be Running On Four Loko

From: Treehugger



I never did have the bad fortune to drink any Four Loko during the brief period of around four and a half minutes when it was legal to do so. Alas, the controversial alcoholic energy drink has been banned and huge shipments of the stuff kept from coming to market. But what's surely a loss for college kids and aspiring rappers everywhere is the ethanol industry's gain. Say what? Yup, it may not be long before Four Loko is fueling your car.



Grist has the story:



A Virginia facility is now turning the drinks into fuel, by distilling their alcohol and recycling it into ethanol. MXI Environmental Services, one of three plants in the U.S. that can turn products with extractable alcohol into auto fuel, has contracted to buy Four Loko producer Phusion Projects' backlog of the stuff, which is now often unsellable as well as undrinkable. They're also accepting shipments of alcoholic energy drinks from wholesalers across the East Coast -- the Associated Press reports that MXI is expecting "a couple hundred truckloads," each of which holds 2,000 cases. That's a lot of caffeinated booze mercifully removed from the hands of college students.



The only reason this story is notable, of course, is because of how much we all love to hate Four Loko, or at least revel in its nearly unparalleled ridiculousness. Turning unused alcoholic beverages into ethanol is hardly a new practice -- MXI, along with two other plants in the US, have been transforming bad booze into fuel for years.



And yes, that includes alcoholic energy drinks -- which means that the similarly-fated Sparks might already be powering your Volvo.

Support U.S. Businesses Making Green Investments

Source: AJC



If there’s one thing Americans agree on in these divided times, it’s the urgent need to move toward cleaner energy. Polls as recently as November show a majority of Americans favoring comprehensive energy reform that limits pollution, develops domestic sources and stimulates renewable power.

We’re not likely to get comprehensive reform in the year ahead, but I still see strong paths toward a cleaner, more sustainable economy.

That’s because smart entrepreneurs are taking the lead. They see the “green” in green and don’t want to miss out on the next big industrial revolution transforming the global economy.

Corporate clean tech innovations were, in fact, the buzz at the recent international climate treaty talks in Cancun, Mexico. At a side meeting for business leaders, Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris announced that his company is reaping $50 billion in annual revenues from the sale of its clean tech products. Solar shingles, coatings for energy-saving “cool” roofs, and sugarcane-based plastic, which emits far fewer greenhouse gases than petroleum-based plastic, are just some of Dow’s budding green technologies.

Green infrastructure giant Siemens’ portfolio likewise topped $37 billion in 2010. Nearly half of its 8,000-plus inventions last year involved technologies that improve energy efficiency and sustainability: innovations such as coatings for power plant turbine blades, ultra-efficient lighting systems, and electric car charging technologies.

Perhaps most impressive was Coca-Cola’s announcement that it has removed the potent global warming pollutant HFC from 200,000 of its refrigeration units, and that it hopes to make its entire supply chain of 10 million refrigeration units completely HFC-free by 2015.

Even better, Coca-Cola, Greenpeace and other stakeholders convinced a consortium of 400 global consumer goods manufacturers to join their effort, and the group has now pledged a “gigaton-scale commitment” to phase out HFC refrigerants by 2015. Getting their peers on board means that scaling up this new technology will happen more quickly and cheaply. A win-win for everyone.

Beyond corporate initiatives, emerging economies also give me hope for green progress in 2011. These rising tigers — some with the fastest-growing greenhouse gas emissions in the world — are taking concrete steps to reduce their contribution to global climate change.

India began levying a carbon tax on coal producers in July, just one month before the U.S. Senate abandoned its efforts to pass a comprehensive climate bill. India will use those revenues to finance clean energy development.

Brazil passed a national law requiring 32 emissions-reducing activities and adopted a voluntary goal of reducing its emissions by more than one-third by 2020.

And China is globally dominating the wind and solar power industries. Though it still relies heavily on coal, China has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by 2020.

While these actions foster hope, they also leave me wondering why the United States is still stuck on fossil fuels and continues to cede the green industrial revolution — and the jobs that come with it — to other nations. China already boasts more than a million renewable energy jobs, five times the U.S. total.

Without strong national policies to incentivize clean technologies, voluntary business initiatives can only go so far. As Dow’s Liveris put it, “We have the technologies for a global clean economy, but they will not deploy in significant numbers without greater public policy certainty and incentives.”

The United States instead continues to seek short-term fixes from dirtier and dirtier sources of energy.

Take the proposed 1,900-mile, $12 billion Keystone oil pipeline designed to bring up to 1.5 million barrels a day of crude from Canada’s oil sands to U.S. refineries as far south as the Gulf Coast.

While the prospect of buying oil from Canadians, rather than unstable regimes, may sound appealing, there’s a catch. Extracting crude from sticky oil sands emits far more greenhouse gases per barrel than conventional oil, and it is causing widespread environmental and health problems across vast stretches of Alberta, as outlined in a new report by the Royal Canadian Society.

Why seek out dirtier sources of oil when we could be innovating electric cars and clean fuels for jets and improving vehicle efficiency standards — all of which will help us regain our competitive footing in the global economy and put Americans back to work?

And here’s the real kicker: Many of these clean technologies already exist. We just need the right policies and priorities to scale them up.

Last month’s vote in Congress to extend renewable energy tax credits — which will create 20,000 new jobs next year in the wind industry alone — is a good example of what I mean. And there are other smart policies we can adopt in the coming months, whether to expand energy efficiency or strengthen truck mileage standards, which will move the U.S. toward a cleaner energy future.

Now that would really fuel my optimism.

Carbon Limits A Boon For Traders

Source: AJC



As the federal government starts to take a firmer stance against the carbon emissions that are blamed for global warming, Georgia businesses, along with the state’s trees, are a growing part of the equation.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is gearing up to regulate how much carbon both fossil-fuel burning power plants and oil refineries can pump into the atmosphere.

Proposed limits are expected to be made public later in 2011 and could become law in 2012.

For Atlanta entrepreneur Mark Loewen, the new rules mean more competition is on the way in his business dealing in greenhouse gas credits.

He figures his $1 million-a-year business, Carbon International, is ahead of the curve in the small but emerging market in trading carbon offsets. It works like this: Companies that emit carbon gases, such as smoke from fleets of diesel trucks, or smokestacks, go to a carbon trader. The trader hooks the businesses up with timber companies or tree farmers and makes a deal.

The carbon-emitting companies pay the farmers to not cut down the trees or to plant new trees. The idea is that the trees, which gobble up carbon, will store up the carbon from the atmosphere and offset what the smokestacks spew.

Loewen expects his competition to heat up in the new year.

“This is huge,” said Loewen, who started his company about a year ago and now has a staff of 41 full-timers. “While a number of businesses voluntarily want to reduce their impact, there’s nothing in the U.S. forcing anyone to do that. But that’s going to change fast.”

Carbon emissions, gases produced by burning wood and fossil fuels such as coal and oil, are believed by many scientists to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and act like a greenhouse, warming up the planet.

According to an EPA press release, the agency expects to start crafting rules to govern carbon emissions from power plants in July 2011, and oil refineries in December 2011.

Loewen said that new regulations could spur a cottage industry in the carbon trade market.

“This will be unbelievably big,” he said. “While global warming has been a political football in the U.S., it’s regarded as fact across much of the rest of the world.”

But not everyone thinks this is the best approach.

Colleen Kiernan, the director of the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club in Atlanta, said that while her group is all about saving trees, they aren’t the cure-all for the environment.

“Holding onto trees is just a Band-Aid on the bigger problem,” Kiernan said. “We need to stop burning fossil fuels.”

More than 190 nations have adopted the United Nations international treaty, commonly called the Kyoto Protocol, aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. The U.S. hasn’t adopted it.

Most of Loewen’s clients are businesses that operate, and pollute, in other nations, and those companies must follow the rules of the other nations — even if it’s a plane flying over another country’s airspace, or diesel trucks hauling vegetables up from South America.

His company has rights reserved for about 300,000 acres of pine forests in Georgia and 3.9 million acres of forest worldwide. That means his company has the right to put a hold on any future culling of the forest if a company pays to save the trees from the ax and bank up the carbon.

Depending on the type of forest, the costs for the offsets vary, Loewen and others in the industry said. Roughly one acre of pine forest can offset one ton of carbon. If you drive a small car that gets about 40 mpg, your car would generate about 1 ton of carbon emissions for every 250 miles, according to multiple experts.

Others in carbon-trading also expect the market to become a booming industry. Blake Sullivan, of the Macon-based Carbon Tree Bank, has 26,000 acres of forest in the state under contract for carbon banking.

“Georgia has an abundance of forests right here, and trees are like the lungs of the Earth,” he said. “They inhale carbon and exhale oxygen. We can be part of the solution right here in our own backyard.”

Sullivan said that much of his business is driven by companies that are already conscious of carbon pollution.

His group works with Power4Georgians, a coalition of small electric co-ops that started a program in 2009 called Keeping Forests in Forests. Under that program, about 700,000 Georgia electric customers are given a chance to contribute an extra few dollars on their electric bills, and that money is used to offset carbon emissions. The program has raised more than $250,000 so far.

But not everyone is thrilled with the idea of marketing trees as carbon storage banks, even those who are true believers in global warming.

Professor Judith A. Curry, the chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been warning people about the dangers of climate change for years.

She even testified in November before the U.S. House of Representatives’ subcommittee on energy and environment about the dangers of global floods, heat waves, melting glaciers and sinking coastlines

“I don’t think offsets are at all useful,” Curry said. “While they may be a feel-good move, they don’t help in the long run.”

She said that most of the trees being reserved as carbon banks are already storing the carbon. A promise to not cut the tree down isn’t a lasting solution.

“We shouldn’t cut down all our trees. But, at the same time, you can’t promise that those trees will never be cut down,” she said. “If there’s a fire next week and those trees are gone, what have you accomplished?

“We need to stop using fossil fuels and develop other technologies that can permanently sequester the carbon, and keep it out of the atmosphere.”

Curry also said that it would be easy for a company to claim they have forests reserved in some far-off place, but it might be difficult to prove.

Loewen agreed that there should be strict verification measures. He also said that trees won’t be the only solution to global warming.

“But forests can be a big help right now,” he said. “We shouldn’t ignore this resource just because we don’t have the perfect answer right now.”

Businesses that adopt solar energy are awarded RECs when they generate 1,000 kW (or 1 MW) of energy. These RECs can then be sold to larger companies that are required by federal law to purchase credits to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.

EPA Sues Coal-Burning Plant Over Air Pollution

Source: Post-Gazette

Past and present owners of one of the nation's dirtiest power plants in Homer City, Indiana County, have been sued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for operating for decades without required federal permits or adequate pollution controls.

The lawsuit claims the plant failed to meet federal pollution standards as far back as the early 1990s and its owners should be required to pay fines of up to $37,500 per day per violation.
The EPA lawsuit, which was joined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the New York attorney general, said emissions from the 1,884-megawatt power plant operated by EME Homer City Generating LP harm public health and the environment, contribute to premature mortality and asthma attacks and generate acid rain among other "adverse effects in downwind communities and natural areas."

It also says annual emissions of about 100,000 tons of sulfur dioxide pollution alone from the Homer City plant makes it "one of the largest air pollution sources in the nation."
The civil lawsuit was filed on EPA's behalf by the U.S. Justice Department Thursday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh. It names EME along with eight limited liability corporate owners and prior owners, including Pennsylvania Electric Co. and New York State Electric & Gas Corp.
"The Clean Air Act was intended by Congress to protect the public from air pollution, including pollution from large sources of emissions like coal-fired power plants," Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a news release. "We are taking this step to protect the quality of the air people breathe not only in Homer City, but also in the communities that are located downwind of this power plant."

The power plant has three units, two of which do not have pollution control equipment known as "scrubbers" to remove sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from emissions. State of the art pollution controls could reduce those emissions by 95 percent, which would represent a 1 percent decline in sulfur dioxide pollution nationwide, said EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Smith of Region III in Philadelphia.

The lawsuit states that former owners and operators modified the plant in the 1990s, before EME Homer City took over operations in 1999, without installing "best available technology," as federal Clean Air Act regulations require. Those modifications were made without requesting or receiving proper permits, it states, and EME continued operating the plant without ever seeking or obtaining proper permits for the modifications or upgrades.

Because of those "unlawful modifications," the lawsuit states, significant amounts of sulfur dioxide and fine particle pollution continue to be emitted by the 42-year-old power plant.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said in a news release Thursday that the emissions from the Homer City power plant are transported by prevailing winds and endangering the health of Empire State residents.

"The owners of this power plant have repeatedly thumbed their noses at clean air laws, while dumping more than double the sulfur dioxide pollution into our air and lungs as all of the power plants operating in New York combined," Mr Schneiderman said. "This lawsuit reflects my commitment, holding the owners of the Homer City power plant accountable for breaking the law, and polluting the air that New Yorkers breathe."

Charley Parnell, spokesman for Edison Mission Energy, or EME, based on Santa Anna, Calif., said the company has yet to review the suit and does not comment on current litigation.

Cobb EMC Chief Indicted on Racketeering And Theft

From: AJC


The head of Marietta-based Cobb EMC was released from jail Thursday night after a Cobb County grand jury indicted him on 31 counts of racketeering and theft.

Dwight Brown's indictment Thursday capped a two year criminal investigation of the nonprofit electric cooperative that provides power to about 200,000 customers.

Brown turned himself in and was booked into the Cobb County Jail about 6:15 p.m. Thursday, and was released on his own recognizance about 9 p.m. His attorney, Craig Gillen, promises a fierce fight.

The indictment accuses Brown of stealing millions from the customer-owned cooperative and its customers, which include the Cobb County school system and government, and of making false statements to customers in order to conceal the thefts.

It also opens a new chapter in a legal saga that began in 2007, after an investigative report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution raised questions about the relationship between Cobb EMC and a for-profit company set up and owned by co-op insiders, including Brown.

For more than a decade, the for-profit Cobb Energy ran the non-profit electric company under a 40-year contract, charging a mark-up that eventually hit 11 percent for work the co-op had previously done for itself.

Brown “is innocent of these charges and we intend to fight each and every charge in court,” Gillen said Thursday.

Racketeering carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison and a fine. The other charges could result in as many as 10 years in prison.

The initial AJC report led to a customer lawsuit against the co-op and Cobb Energy that was settled in December 2008. Pat Head, the district attorney for Cobb, began the criminal investigation shortly after.

The indictment focuses on the relationship between the two companies, specifically business transactions in which the co-ops assets were allegedly used to subsidize Cobb Energy, and for which the co-op and its member-owners received no compensation.

Brown was CEO of both companies and a major Cobb Energy stockholder.

The indictment lists more than $50 million since 1997 that it said was either taken out of the co-op or was not paid to the co-op by Cobb Energy.

Some of the theft charges involve Brown’s receipt of $3 million in loans -- later forgiven -- from the two companies and his receipt of Cobb Energy stock dividends. Brown and his wife earned about $265,000 in annual dividends from their shares.

The indictment lists a number of occasions in which Brown -- or reports signed by Brown -- allegedly misrepresented the health of Cobb Energy or failed to disclose the extent to which the co-op and its members subsidized it.

“No other individual had as much information about Cobb EMC and Cobb Energy and no other individual had as much power and influence within those entities,” the indictment said.

Brown's attorney, Craig Gillen, promised a fierce fight.

Gillen denied his client received any illicit money from the Cobb Energy’s relationship with Cobb EMC.

“This is a racketeering indictment which charges theft of millions and millions of dollars,” he said. “The simple truth is that not a single dollar went to Mr. Brown that was not lawful and was not authorized by the respective boards of directors” of Cobb EMC and Cobb Energy.

He said the decision to engage in transactions in the indictment were “based on the wise advice of some of the finest attorneys and business consultants in America. Those decisions were good decisions at the time and, in retrospect, are even better decisions.”

Head said he couldn’t discuss the case, but left open the possibility of further indictments against others. Search warrants issued in 2009 included homes of some of the co-op’s board members.

“This is a very complicated case that’s going to be well-represented on both sides and for that reason I think the less we talk about it in the press the best off both sides will be,” he said.

His office took two years investigating because of the complexity, he said: “It’s the most complicated case, I think, that has ever been handled by the District Attorney’s office.”

He said it will be challenging to prevent evidence to a jury. “But it’s like any other case. You try to boil it down to the most simplistic terms you have so it’s easily digestible.”

Attorney Pitts Carr, who represented customers in their lawsuit against the co-op, said the indictment “confirms, in our opinion, that the Cobb Energy arrangement was, as alleged in our complaint, a methodology to siphon off assets that properly belong to the EMC’s members,” he said. “We certainly hope this energizes the leadership to bring in new management.”

Cobb EMC was created in the 1930s to bring power to what was then a rural part of Georgia. It is one of 42 co-ops in Georgia, and one of several serving now densely populated suburbs in metro Atlanta.

Electric co-ops are owned by members and profits are assigned to those members based on how much electricity they buy. Most co-ops return at least some of that capital back to members regularly. By 2007, Cobb EMC had not returned that money for more than 30 years. The company has said it used the money to build out its system, and that it rewarded customers in other ways, such as rebates based on power cost savings.

Although they are monopolies for all but the biggest customers, Georgia’s electric co-ops aren’t regulated by the state as investor-owned utilities are. They’re considered self-regulating because customers own them and elect boards of directors.

Brown and the co-op’s board formed Cobb Energy in the late 1990s to both branch into other businesses and protect the co-op from a takeover, according to depositions in the civil case.

The co-op transferred its meters and employees to the new company, and initially owned 100 percent of the company’s stock. Its ownership eroded over time, while Brown, co-op employees and other co-op insiders purchased stock of their own.

Most of the theft allegations in Thursday’s indictment focused on one of Cobb Energy’s first side ventures, which was to sell natural gas service for SCANA Energy.

According to the indictment, Cobb Energy used Cobb EMC’s customer list to do that, but the co-op got none of the revenue.

Later, when Cobb Energy got out of the contract, Brown “directed that Cobb EMC pay Cobb Energy approximately $3.4 million in connection with the termination of the SCANA contract, even though Cobb EMC had never received any revenue from that contract.”