MORE NEWS, 1-16 (GRANTS INSTEAD OF TAX CREDITS FOR NEW ENERGY?; TOLEDO, OHIO—SUN CITY; GOOGLE SEARCH EMISSIONS; PORTABLE POWER FROM WIND, SUN)

GRANTS INSTEAD OF TAX CREDITS FOR NEW ENERGY?
House Bill To Include Billions In Grants For Wind Projects
Martin Vaughan, January 15, 2009 (Dow Jones via CNN Money)

"House lawmakers are proposing to give solar and wind energy producers billions in government grants instead of tax credits to build renewable energy capacity, potentially transforming the way renewable energy projects have been financed…

"The new grant program, which will be administered by the Department of Energy, is part of House economic stimulus legislation…

"The new funding, which temporarily replaces the tax credit that wind and solar projects have long relied on with direct government spending, underscores President-elect Barack Obama's commitment to double renewable electricity production in three years."

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"Obama will give a speech on economic recovery Friday at a wind-turbine manufacturing plant in Ohio.

"The grant program is meant to address the collapse of the market for renewable energy tax credits…Large financial firms…historically have been the biggest users of the tax credits. But with the collapse of the banking sector and financial profits, banks no longer had enough tax liability to use the credits, putting new renewable power projects in jeopardy.

"Solar and wind groups lobbied Congress to make the tax credits refundable…lawmakers rejected that approach, and instead proposed a move away from tax credit financing altogether to support the industry through grants…a House Ways and Means Committee spokesman said the grant programs would be temporary…

"Besides the new grant program, the House stimulus bill would extend the production tax credit for wind by three years…The bill would also give wind farms the choice of either the production tax credit or the 30% investment tax credit now available only to solar and qualified fuel cell projects…"


TOLEDO, OHIO—SUN CITY
Toledo tries to reinvent itself with solar energy
Dave Hoekstra, January 15, 2009 (Chicago Sun-Times)

“…Tony Packo's, an untony hot dog eatery in the Hungarian section of Toledo…[is] where Barack Obama enjoyed a Packo's classic Hungarian sausage with mustard and onions. So did Bill and Hillary Clinton. And George W. Bush and Joe Biden. Their autographed buns hang in plastic cases near the front door…more than 1,000 autographed buns hang on the walls…

“…owner Tony Packo III said…"This is a Democratic neighborhood. With Obama, we sent food to one of his events here. We don't send a bun out in the mail and say, 'Please sign this.' It is an authentic thing…And Toledo is becoming the epicenter of America with the struggles of the Rust Belt. Toledo is trying to transform itself with things like solar energy. The sand in Lake Erie is what made Toledo such a great place to make glass. We hope we can reinvent ourselves, just like the Carolinas did with the textile industry."

“…just a couple of miles away downtown [is] Pilkington North America, which manufactures and markets flat and safety glass. And Pilkington started a solar division two years ago. It is growing at more than a 40 percent clip annually.

“The University of Toledo is also researching solar energy.

“… Stephen Weidner, Pilkington's vice president of sales [said,] "Glass is unique because it is transparent. Generating electricity from the sun is taking some technology used in the computer industry, which is the use of semi-conductor materials. You need sunlight to activate that. Because [solar] products need to be exposed to the sun, they also need to be protected from the elements. And glass is perfect for that." …”


GOOGLE SEARCH EMISSIONS
Google responds to search carbon cost claims
Jack Riley, 12 January 2009 (UK Independent)

“A recent claim from a Harvard fellow that conducting two Google searches releases as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as that required to produce the electricity to boil a kettle has drawn criticism from the company's Senior Vice President of Operations.

“…Urs Hölzle claimed that the actual cost…is closer to one seventy-fifth of the carbon released when making a cup of tea. It is far below the 7 grams which Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist and co-founder of Enernetics, a business which sells IT companies carbon credits to help them go carbon neutral, claims is released every time a user makes one of the estimated 400 million queries the search engine receives per day…”

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“Mr Hölzle [also] trumpets a raft of energy-saving initiatives the search giant has recently supported, from charitable arm Google.org's $45 million investment in clean energy technology last year to the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, founded in 2007 to "[cut] the energy consumed by computers in half by 2010 — reducing global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year."

“…in 2007, Australian company Heap Media launched a search engine powered by Google called "Blackle", aimed at negating the amount of energy consumed by monitors displaying the largely white background of Google's homepage by offering a similar service on a black background.”


PORTABLE POWER FROM WIND, SUN
K2 Charges Electronics With Solar and Wind Energy
January 12, 2009, PC World via Yahoo Tech)

“With green being a big theme at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the K2 from Kinesis fits right in. The waterproof device can charge a number of electronic devices using just solar and wind energy.

“The device has… a solar panel, wind turbine and internal battery. The sun and wind can charge the internal battery, which can then power and charge electronics. There is also an option to charge the internal battery using a standard wall outlet…

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“Charging the internal battery using solar energy takes six to eight hours. With wind it takes 24 hours to charge…Once fully charged, the K2 provides about 15 hours of total charging time.

“There's a power meter on the side of the device that indicates the level of charge for the internal battery. Just below the meter are the USB (Universal Serial Bus) and mini USB ports for charging. In the base of the unit is a compartment to store charging tips and wires.

“The K2 will come to market later this year for about US$100.”