Published on December 23rd, 2008
California utility Pacific Gas and Electric announced yesterday it is signing a 20-year agreement to purchase the first 10 megawatts of electricity from Sempra Energy’s El Dorado Solar project near Boulder City Nevada.
The plant was built by Tempe, Arizona-based Firsr Solar using thin film solar panels made of low-cost cadmium tellurium as the material converting sunlight to electrical energy, requiring only 1% of the silicon used in crystalline solar cells. The El Dorado unit is North America’s largest thin-film solar plant, and has plans to expand by another 50 megawatts next year, all part of Sempra’s plan to eventually produce 500MW of thin-film solar power, CEO Michael Altman told Reuters, adding “The size and scope of this new solar generation facility clearly demonstrates that we can build projects on a scale that helps utilities meet their renewable energy goals”.
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Published on November 20th, 2008
Which would you rather have: your Sony Playstation 3 or a year’s worth of electricity for the entire city of San Diego?
Silly question? You might not think so after reading the Natural Resources Defense Council’s new study, “Lowering the Cost of Play: Improving Energy Efficiency of Video Game Consoles.” Prepared with the help of Ecos Consulting, the report finds that energy inefficiencies and poor practices like not turning off games that aren’t in use are wasting huge amounts of energy and generating lots of greenhouse gases.
This is the first time anyone’s taken a hard and comprehensive look at the energy and carbon footprint of video games, and the findings might surprise you:
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Published on November 20th, 2008
With Thanksgiving around the corner and (slightly) cooler weather here in LA, my thoughts are turning to comfort food. From stuffing to squash, it all sounds good right now. What better way to enjoy the best that the season has to offer than joining in the movement of community-supported agriculture?
These farms, or CSAs, provide fresh produce, and sometimes meat and dairy. For a fee, you get baskets of fresh food once a week. One well-known CSA in LA is the Tierra Miguel Foundation, which drops off batches of organic produce at designated spots around town. All you do is swing by and pick it up. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can visit the North San Diego farm in person the first Saturday of each month. The farm is also a charitable foundation that supports education in sustainable agriculture.
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Published on September 17th, 2008
A San Diego-based company says it’s engineered a new strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) — one of the bugs that causes food poisoning — that can produce a building block for plastic products without petroleum.
Genomatica, a company “focused on producing sustainable chemicals,” says its new version of the E. coli bacterium naturally produces 1,4‐butanediol (BDO), an organic and petroleum-based compound used to manufacture hundreds of different kinds of plastic, rubber and fiber products. The process not only uses 30 percent less energy than standard BDO production techniques, but can be fueled with non-food-based, renewable plant waste.
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Published on September 9th, 2008
Naomi Oreskes, one of the champions of sound science on climate change, has done it again, piercing through the veil of skeptic-speak and public misinformation to reveal another insight into the politics of global warming.
Oreskes, you might recall, is the University of California, San Diego professor of history and science studies who thoroughly discredited the argument that there’s yet no scientific consensus on climate change. Her 2004 analysis of 928 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1993 and 2003 found that not one author disputed the consensus that Earth’s climate is changing.
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Published on September 5th, 2008
California officials are reviving a long-unused water bank program to help ensure the thirsty southern part of the state has alternative supplies if winter snow and rain don’t replenish natural reservoirs.
Under the program, last used in 1992, the state can buy back water allocations from farmers in the Sacramento Valley who don’t need their supplies, then sell that water to agencies around Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and other dry regions.
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Published on June 17th, 2008
What price are you willing to pay to get the oil/coal/gas monkey off your back and switch your community to clean energy? Would you accept a long stretch of high-voltage power lines across your favorite scenic vista?
It’s a question I’ve taken on before in a post titled, “What Do I WIMBY (Want In My Backyard)?,” and it’s now cropped up in the news. The place: Southern California. The plan: San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s proposal to build one of the planet’s biggest solar power installations in the desert, along with wind and geothermal facilities. The opposition: environmental groups like the Center for Biological Diversity.
Why? Because the Sunrise Powerlink clean-energy project calls for 150 miles of high-voltage power lines, including spans through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the Cleveland National Forest and other protected parks and preserves. In fact, state and federal agencies analyzing seven potential routes for power lines ranked the path through Anza-Borrego as the second-worst in terms of potential environmental damage.
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