Author

Jeff Kart

Green Job Training: U.S. government holding five grant competitions

If the headline doesn’t get you, the price tag might: $500 million.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis was in Memphis last week to announce five grant competitions, totaling $500 million, to fund projects that will prepare workers for green jobs in the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries.

Sharpen your pencils. Four of the contests are aimed at training workers through various national, state and community outlets, according to Solis:

Energy Training Partnership Grants;
Pathways Out of Poverty Grants;
State Energy Sector Partnership and Training Grants;
Green Capacity Building Grants.

June 29, 2009 5 comments

Water issues: Green sub searches for jobs and squid in California

written by Jeff Kart

A little two-man submarine in Lake Tahoe, California, is searching for jobs under the water.

What’s down there? A nonprofit called the Undersea Voyager Project is getting ready to launch a five-year mission in 2011 to look for ideas on how to restore endangered bodies of water around the world, USA Today reports.

The one problem with water issues is that it’s hard for people to be concerned about what they can’t see.

Only 1 percent of the water column and 3 percent of the ocean floor has been explored on Planet Earth, says the group, led by Scott Cassell.

Project leaders hopes the sub’s explorations will attract attention on pollution and overfishing.

June 25, 2009 0 comment

Wait a cotton-picking minute, and listen to BioSolar’s plans

written by Jeff Kart

BioSolar Inc., a publicly traded California company, says it’s come up with a way to build a better solar panel, with plastics made from plants.

I sat down recently with company CEO David Lee, both of us at keyboards, to discuss BioSolar’s plans for a plastic revolution in sun power manufacturing.

Lee’s protective backing is derived from cotton and castor beans, and costs 25 percent less than Tedlar, the petroleum-based film made by rival DuPont, company officials say. Lee, an electrical engineer, founded the company in 2006.

Q: What makes BioSolar different from other solar companies in the United States?

Lee: BioSolar is developing a technology to produce bio-based photovoltaic (PV) components from renewable plant sources that will reduce the cost per watt of PV modules. BioSolar will gradually replace the petroleum-based portions of the PV module and do so at a substantial cost savings.

May 21, 2009 0 comment

Wind Energy: Bird kills on the radar

written by Jeff Kart

A colleague of mine said to me recently, “No energy is clean energy.”

Which got me thinking. Of course, Clean Coal comes to mind. And people love to say that “No coal is clean,” and “Clean Coal is an oxymoron.”

OK, OK. It’s not the best marketing term I’ve ever heard. There is a U.S. Department of Energy program that uses the term, and that program has funded gasification and carbon sequestration projects. So there is such a thing, whatever you want to call it. How about “Clean(er) Coal”?

Then I thought about wind. Big, majestic, white turbines … cutting up birds that fly into them. Whoops. That’s not very clean.

May 11, 2009 6 comments

Corn-based ethanol takes a hit

written by Jeff Kart

There’s a kernel of good to this story, if you care about climate change and high food prices.

Sure, ethanol has been a great example of how America can begin to overcome its dependency on foreign fossil fuels. But using a staple like corn to make the biofuel has driven up food prices and displaced other food crops.

Now comes the Obama administration, which has proposed new rules for renewable fuels, aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, he’s vowed to help prop up the corn ethanol industry with stimulus dollars, and commit stimulus funds to biofuel research.

May 8, 2009 2 comments

Clean Tech can chase coal ash runoff

written by Jeff Kart

Just when you thought the future was in carbon capture and sequestration (and that’s true), comes more information from the “new EPA” under Administrator Lisa Jackson and President Barack Obama.

The agency, which has already begun the process of regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, is now going after runoff.

It seems the same scrubber technology that’s helping clean up power plant emissions creates toxic residue that’s stored in ponds or flushed to waterways. The target of concern is selenium, which can accumulate in fish tissue like mercury.

May 6, 2009 0 comment

Green infrastructure: Sewage, sewage, go away

written by Jeff Kart

You know the song: “Rain, rain, go away/Come again some other day.”

Heavy rain in places with older sewer systems (Michigan and elsewhere), often results in combined sewage overflows. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And the solution doesn’t have to cost billions of dollars.

First off, combined sewage systems are problematic because they take in sanitary sewage (toilet) in the same pipes as stormwater runoff (manhole). When it rains, water that runs off of impervious surfaces like rooftops and parking lots can overwhelm combined systems.

April 27, 2009 1 comment

Will power lines sink offshore wind? Money talks

written by Jeff Kart

The news out of New York was big. The New York Power Authority is working on rules for siting 120 megawatts of offshore wind turbines in Lakes Erie and Ontario.

But a bigger wind and water story was hatched this week in the Great Plains. President Barack Obama, in an Earth Day speech in Iowa, said his administration is clearing the red tape for siting windmills on the outer continental shelf.

Forbes.com reports that the Department of Interior’s Mineral and Management Service will grant wind developers leases and easements to erect wind farms on the shelf, along with rights of way to wire wind power from water to land. There’s been a moratorium on offshore wind development for about four years in the United States; all the offshore wind is in Europe for now.

April 24, 2009 0 comment

Wastewater Treatment: The Toxic Avenger in your toilet

written by Jeff Kart

You’ve probably heard the reports about drugs in our water that aren’t removed by traditional wastewater treatment.

Maybe you’ve heard about the harmful byproducts spawned when chlorine is used in the water treatment process.

Here’s a new one: Super bacteria that are actually being created (and made stronger) in the wastewater treatment process. It goes back, in part, to the common use of antibiotics to treat routine illnesses. Remember the last time you were sick and went to the doctor? Did you leave with a prescription for Z-Pac?

April 20, 2009 4 comments

Climate Change: Time to get the muck out

written by Jeff Kart

This is kind of backward. States have banned phosphorus fertilizers for lawns, because the phosphorus runs off the landscape, into rivers and streams, and breeds algal blooms and muck. Ever visited a beach visited by muck? It’s not a vacation.

But here comes some new warnings: Climate change can cause more phosphorus to leach from the soil. I can see the conflicts now: People who want thicker lawns vs. people who want to relax in the sweet, sweet sugar sand.

The argument for phosphorus bans has been the need to keep beaches free of dead algae, and the fact that soil in places like Michigan already contains enough natural phosphorus to grow a decent lawn.

But climate change predictions include more heavy rainstorms, with soil being rewetted more frequently. Apparently, this rewetting means an increase in phosphorus that leaches from the soil and into our waterways.

And this is about more than the beach.

April 16, 2009 8 comments

Clean Tech is all wet

written by Jeff Kart

Summer’s comin. Sun, sand, beach and shiga toxin.

Shiga toxin?

Yep, it’s a gene that can make swimmers sick. And health departments don’t test for it in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania. They test for E. coli, an indicator bug that’s much better known, but isn’t always harmful. So the beach you visit may be “clean” for E. coli, but not shiga toxin. That can keep you up at night, literally (severe gastrointestinal illness).

A two-year study by Mercyhurst College says there’s a need for standardized tests for specific pathogens like shiga toxin to better protect the public.

Talk about a Clean Tech opportunity.

April 14, 2009 0 comment

Clean Tech = Pajamas once in a while

written by Jeff Kart

Don’t be insulted. Relax.

World Wildlife Fund has released two studies on lowering your carbon footprint. It turns out that it’s good for the environment, and your quality of life.

There’s nothing wrong with wearing a tie, or spending time in an office. Professionalism is important. But you don’t need to drive or fly (all the time) to be a professional. With the advent of the Internet (years ago), virtual conferencing can often take the place of in-person meetings. And who’s to say you aren’t wearing a pair of pajama bottoms below your shirt and tie. Who’s to know?

April 10, 2009 3 comments

Recycling gets trashed, stimulus has cash

written by Jeff Kart

The recession is hitting recycling hard.

Markets for metals and other recyclable goods are in the toilet. Some haulers are even stockpiling stuff in hopes of better days ahead.

The downturn has put the future of National Recycling Coalition in jeopardy, according to a letter sent recently to members. Among the ideas being floated are consolidating the group with another similar organization.

In what is becoming a familiar refrain, the federal stimulus bill holds some promise. The bill includes a provision from the NRC and its members that authorizes $3.2 billion for the Energy Efficiency Block Grant program, for communities to use for energy-related actions including projects related to source reduction and recycling, the coalition says.

April 7, 2009 2 comments

Team Algae to the rescue

written by Jeff Kart

Can you make lemonade from algae?

Figuratively, yes. A bunch of students from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University have a business plan to use algae to treat wastewater and make biofuels.

It’s a double play, like taking lemons and making a cool, refreshing drink. Or maybe even a three-pointer, since these are rival schools.

The students, calling themselves Team Algal Scientific, were recently awarded the first-ever Clean Energy Prize from U of M and DTE Energy.

April 2, 2009 1 comment

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