theCLog

OK, maybe not everyone — but Environment North Carolina would like to see a lot of solar panels installed in our state. Plus, they say Mecklenburg County is a great place to get started with their solar aspirations. Oh, and make it snappy.

The big snag, as always, is money. Though, if the state — and especially Charlotte — wants to become an alternative energy leader, I’m sure they’ll find a way to step up supply — which will lead to lower prices — to meet rising demand.

An environmental advocacy group that says North Carolina’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising proposes a solution: Putting solar panels on nearly 700,000 rooftops.

Environment North Carolina, in a report to be issued today, says that based on current solar energy development in the state, the sun could supply at least 14 percent of the state’s energy needs in two decades.

The group’s report identifies Wake and Mecklenburg counties as having the greatest number of rooftops suitable for solar panels.

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The goal set out by Environment North Carolina would require the state to develop 13,900 megawatts of solar energy, which would make this state nearly equivalent to the 14,730 megawatts of solar energy currently available worldwide.

Megawatt for megawatt, solar power is the most expensive form of electricity today, but green energy advocates say planning can’t be based on current costs.

“The cost of solar power is coming down, while the cost of dirty energy is going up,” said Elizabeth Ouzts, state director for Environment North Carolina. “In the not-too-distant future, the cost of solar will be cheaper than building a new coal-fired power plant.”

The solar report comes a day after the group released a study saying North Carolina’s greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere have risen 39 percent from 1990 to 2007. The data come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s “State Energy Consumption, Price and Expenditure Estimates.”

The rise in emissions is caused by more cars on the road burning more fuel, and more electricity being generated by the state’s 45 coal-burning units.

Read the entire Raleigh News and Observer article here.

Further reading:

• N.C. to get $950K for green jobs
• Report details ‘coal’s assault on human health’
• IRS Disclosures Show Extent of Oil and Coal Groups’ Outreach
• Doctors call for cleaner coal
• Local firms get grants for green projects

“You know what a green economy is? It’s jobs and opportunity.”

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The energy industry is getting a makeover. The U.S. needs to lead the way to remain competitive in the global market, and Charlotte’s ready to lead the charge.

The $787 billion stimulus package the Obama administration put together this year includes about $70 billion in grants and tax breaks for the energy industry — almost all of it directed at clean-energy companies. The Charlotte region, hungry for growth in the sector, has already received significant grants from the clean-energy programs in the bill.

The largest was the $42.9 million awarded to Celgard, a local subsidiary of Charlotte-based Polypore International Inc. That will help Celgard beef up production of membranes used in lithium batteries to power electric vehicles.

That effort will create 200 jobs. Celgard has payroll of 300 at its plant on Carowinds Boulevard. But it’s not clear whether all the new jobs will be in the region. The company intends to use the stimulus funding to help build a second plant, but Mitch Pulwer, general manager, says Celgard has not decided on a site.

Chemetall Foote Corp. in Kings Mountain, a division of Germany-based Chemetall, will also be working on batteries for electric vehicles, using a $28.4 million grant.

The funds will be part of a $56 million investment in expanding Chemetall’s lithium-production facilities.

Tim McKenna, spokesman, says about 60% of the total will be spent in Kings Mountain.

Both companies are already major players in the lithium-battery market. Chemetall produces about a third of the lithium for batteries worldwide. And Celgard is a major supplier for membranes used in batteries for cell phones, laptops, digital cameras and other common products.

But both see the nascent electric-vehicle business as a major new market. That could mean more growth in Kings Mountain and Charlotte down the line.

Read the entire Charlotte Business Journal article here.

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Great news: North Carolina’s Biomass Trader is at your service whether you’ve got trash or need some trashy materials. The site will even connect you to the 411 on composting, organic products and more. Check it out :

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Builders and companies love to shout about their LEED status, but is it bunkus?

LEED, by the way, actually stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Here’s more on the topic from The New York Times:

The Federal Building in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, features an extensive use of natural light to illuminate offices and a white roof to reflect heat.

It has LEED certification, the country’s most recognized seal of approval for green buildings.

But the building is hardly a model of energy efficiency. According to an environmental assessment last year, it did not score high enough to qualify for the Energy Star label granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which ranks buildings after looking at a year’s worth of utility bills.

The building’s cooling system, a major gas guzzler, was one culprit. Another was its design: to get its LEED label, it racked up points for things like native landscaping rather than structural energy-saving features, according to a study by the General Services Administration, which owns the building.

Read the rest of this article here.

Want to know more about LEED ratings?

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Get ready coal, you cheap bastard, wind and solar are finally ready to compete.

“Why are we ignoring things we know? We know that the sun doesn’t always shine and that the wind doesn’t always blow.” So wrote former U.S. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger and Robert L. Hirsch last spring in the Washington Post, suggesting that because these key renewables produce power only intermittently, “solar and wind will probably only provide a modest percentage of future U.S. power.”

Never mind that Schlesinger failed to disclose that he sits on the board of directors of Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company — a business with much to lose if a solar- and wind-powered future arrives. But at least he and his co-author got it partly right. The benefits from wind and solar are mostly intermittent — so far. But the pair somehow missed the fact that a furious search for practical, affordable electricity storage to beat that intermittence problem is well underway.

For decades, “grid parity” has been the Holy Grail for alternative energy. The rap from critics was that technologies like wind and solar could not compete, dollar-for-dollar, with conventional electricity sources, such as coal and nuclear, without large government tax breaks or direct subsidies. But suddenly, with rapid technological advances and growing economies of manufacturing scale, wind power is now nearly at grid parity — meaning it costs roughly the same to generate electricity from wind as it does from coal. And the days when solar power attains grid parity may be only a half-decade away.

Read more from Yale’s Environment 360.

More about storing energy from MIT:

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For those of you trying hard to be as earth-friendly as possible, the folks over at Grist.org have taken some of the sting out of choosing an eco sunscreen.

Over the last several weeks, Grist staffers scooped up several of the readily available eco-brands—four sunscreens, which protect by absorbing ultraviolet rays, and five sunblocks, which provide a physical barrier on your skin—and tested them on our sun-deprived flesh. From the wan streets of Seattle to the blazing beaches of the Dominican Republic, we ventured out with nothing between us and the sun but some eco-promises.

Which brands held up, and which ones crapped out? Read on to find out.

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