Brewing up a Sustainable Storm

As the Brooklyn Brewery, purveyor of the well received "Brooklyn Brown Ale" likes to say, "there's wind in our ales". On the back of their coasters and on their web site they tout:

On September 1, 2003 Brooklyn Brewery because the first NY City company to switch to 100% wind generated electricity. The company's brewery and corporate HQ are 100% powered by Newwind Energy, a product of Community Energy Inc.

Here's the link to Community Energy, purveyor off all things wind including RECs (renewable energy credits) companies like Brooklyn Brewery can purchase when they can't actually stick a turbine on their front lawns. Can you imagine the new turbines required if Bud and Miller went this way? I'd respect their companies a whole lot more if they did, though I still wouldn't drink their swill. Well, maybe when parched on a very hot summer day, and if the beer was really cold. OK, then I'd make an exception.

Silicon Goes Both Ways

Here comes the sun. Some of the same minds and many of the same processes that gave us the every faster microprocessor and the ever denser random access memory (RAM) have turned their sites skyward. Now the NY Times reports that some of them are having success improving the efficiency of the silicon wafer's solar power characteristics. It's not likely Moore's Law - that's the doubling of the number of transistors that can fit on a chip every 2.5 - 3 years - is going to be in effect here. But it is clear that these guys know what they're doing and that the marriage of minds, experience and money is going to be an accelerator for this industry. We can now expect to see solar move closer to mainstream price points in the not-too-distant future.

Oil Closed over $100 a Barrel Yesterday

This is a new milestone. As reported here, it's been over a couple of times in recent months, but this is the first time a day has ended with oil in triple digits. Some publications are forecasting $4 a gallon gas in the US this summer. Please hurry up Auto X Prizers !!!

Wind Power Flying High in 2008

"Mission Control, we have lift off". The WSJ reports that the wind power industry is a $6 billion business for GE this year, and they are far from the world's largest provider of turbines. Despite this great news, some folks apparently wish things were otherwise: see the comments that follow the blog. Seems there's some folks out there who believe wind and other types of non-fossil power exist only because the government is paying for them in the form of subsidies, and that once those funds run dry, the entire new energy economy will grind to a halt. Maybe when wind is a $100 billion business, more skeptics will be convinced. Then again, Kansas still doubts Darwin.

The Hawaii Thesis

Haven't explored, much less attempted to prove, the Hawaii thesis , but it might say something like this: "Hawaii has a robust, innovative and now self-funding renewable energy effort because it is isloated by oceans from traditional energy sources more so than the rest of us, creating cost barriers tall enough to encourage it to broadly develop renewables sooner than the rest of us." If true, and if those taller cost barriers are coming soon to a country near you, Hawaii might offer models to emulate at state and federal levels to promote intelligent energy self sufficiency.

Hawaii's governor in 1995 set the goal of making the state more energy self-sufficient. For Fiscal Year 2007, this is being done by the National Enerrgy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority with "no general fund support."

More later if this thought has merit. If not, maybe a ton of posts to sort of wash this one away in the sands of time.

Everyman's Rights

You can pick wild berries, mushrooms and herbs in Finland under the aged laws proscribed by Everyman's Rights. By this account "even in forests and swamps that they do not own, without needing permission from landowners as long as they do not cause damage to the environment. About 67% of Finnish adults pick wild berries, 46% pick forest mushrooms and 20% pick herbs. When the crop is good, people pick about 50 million kilograms of berries. 35 million kilograms are picked for use at home and 15 million kilograms are picked commercially."

The progression might be an EveryPerson's Privilege to pick apples and pecans grown for that purpose in public spaces: resorts, parks, walking trails.

Orange Tree Energy

I'm eating an orange I picked from the tree in front of my parking space at the Arizona Grand Resort in Phoenix. And I wonder, as I've often wondered, why not a bounty of trees in public and semi-public places offering their produce for the taking. The energy used to get that produce to the end user would be nothing. The cost to the end user would be nothing. The cost to the provider minimal. And the generous spirit engendered by the act would be, maybe, something.