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Better living through sustainability
Calendar of sustainability-related events

 

 
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'Small wind' power plants blow strong

Christian Science Monitor News Service • April 30, 2008 • by Mark Clayton

DOVER, Mass. -- On a recent sunny afternoon Bob Loebelenz pauses to gaze 72 feet into the air at the spinning blades of his wind turbine, a small "clean, free electricity" smile creasing the corners of his mouth.

While giant wind turbines that supply power to utilities sprout along ridgelines across the United States, far smaller residential wind generators, like the one Mr. Loebelenz erected in 2003 to power his suburban Boston home, are still unusual in densely populated places. That may be changing. Across the country signs are growing that "small wind" (a category that includes wind generators geared to supply a single home) is catching on in suburban and even urban settings. (read more...)

Backyard turbines advance

Arizona Daily Sun • Aprll 30, 2008 • by Cyndy Cole

A Coconino County commission has unanimously backed wind towers made in Flagstaff, sweeping aside concerns they would be unsightly or bothersome to neighbors.

Soon, residents of Doney Park and other county residential areas might be able to legally install wind towers from Southwest Windpower, which currently exceed county height limits by a few feet. The Board of Supervisors must ratify the planning commission's recommendation.

A handful of homeowners, including those living off the electric utility grid, have sought ways around these restrictions or just installed them without seeking permission.

Southwest Windpower is the world's largest producer of small-scale wind turbines, exporting them to more than 88 countries and selling 13,000 last year, co-founder Andy Kruse said. (read more...)

North County HealthCare offers Healthy Business Program

Arizona Daily Sun • April 7, 2008 • by Rick Swanson

A small business in Flagstaff has discovered a new way to offer health benefits to its employees. Mountain High Plumbing recently launched a program to purchase healthcare services at North Country HealthCare for its employees. They call it the Healthy Business Program and it works very much like a gift card. Employees receive cards loaded with funds that can be used for healthcare services at North Country HealthCare clinic. North Country offers discounted healthcare services to the employees. The card pays 75 percent of the discounted fee, and the employee is expected to pay the remaining 25 percent of the discounted fee. (read more...)

AZ Senate OKs health-care bill for businesses

The Arizona Republic • Mar. 19, 2008 • Amanda J. Crawford

A bill aimed at saving a beleaguered state health-insurance program for small businesses passed the Arizona State Senate on Tuesday, March 18. The bipartisan proposal would tighten financial controls over Healthcare Group, which insures nearly 23,000 self-employed Arizonans or small-business employees, while opening up the program to new members. Sole proprietors would no longer be eligible to join, but a controversial requirement that businesses be uninsured for six months before joining would be dropped. Enrollment growth of employer groups would be capped at 10 percent a year. (read more...)

'Green' cabinets going national

Arizona Daily Sun • April 6, 2008 • by Chris Coplan

Flagstaff Cabinet Co. has made custom kitchen cabinets and other wooden decor for the last 20 years. But co-owner Chuck Rathert said that, like all businesses, the company is seeking to boost business and gain national exposure. The state-funded Arizona Job Training Program has awarded the company a $316,000 grant to begin training new and existing employees for the challenge of taking their green cabinet building to the rest of the state and country. Another Flagstaff winner of the grant is Agassiz Landscape Group, which was awarded $5,500. (read more...)

Rez ready to develop wind power

Arizona Daily Sun • March 28, 2008 • by Felicia Fonseca (AP)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The Navajo Nation is setting itself up to be a provider of wind power at a time when neighboring states are pushing for increased renewable energy portfolios.

The tribe announced Thursday it has partnered with Boston-based Citizens Energy Corp. to develop wind energy on the vast reservation. "When they flip the switch off for conventional power and flip the switch on for renewable, you want to be able to be there both places," said Steve Begay, general manager of the tribe's Dine Power Authority, or DPA. "It's being in the market all the time with base load fossil fuel power and renewable."

The DPA, Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. and Citizens Energy chairman and president Joseph Kennedy III signed an agreement earlier this month to develop more than 500 megawatts of energy on the Navajo Nation.

Several sites on the reservation are being considered for the Dine Wind Project, including the Gray Mountain ridge southwest of Tuba City and Cameron, immediately west of Gray Mountain. (read more...)

Plant to brighten state's solar future

The Arizona Republic • February 21, 2008 • by Ryan Randazzo

Arizona's solar-power supply is about to get a lot bigger. A solar-energy plant planned near Gila Bend will be among the world's largest when it opens in 2011, Arizona Public Service Co. said Wednesday.

If the solar-thermal plant passes upcoming regulatory and tax hurdles, it will be built and operated by a Spanish company. APS will buy all the electricity from the plant to supply its 1.1 million customers.

As environmental concerns and rising costs affect traditional fuel sources, solar likely will be a bigger part of the mix of power supplies that feed the state's energy needs. At 280 megawatts, enough to power at least 70,000 households, the plant will make even more energy than a similar facility announced in December. Together, the two plants represent a departure from small research projects in favor of full-blown power generation. (read more...)

Not all biofuels are created equal

AZ Daily Sun Editorial • Feburary 20, 2008

Corn-based ethanol might actually accelerate global warming, which is why it's time to ramp up forest thinning and wood cellulose ethanol. (Read more...)

'Green Collar' jobs seen as prosperous

Associated Press • February 1, 2008 • Brian Skoloff

When 1,800 workers lost their jobs after a Maytag appliance factory and headquarters closed last year in the small town of Newton, Iowa, a wind turbine blade company saw opportunity — an available, skilled workforce in the middle of one of America's hardiest wind energy production regions.

TPI Composites Inc. is building a new plant there as the energy industry aims for a cleaner, more sustainable future. With proper incentives, thousands of "green-collar jobs" could be created, from ethanol production to wind turbines and solar panels, and all the maintenance and construction to support them, industry officials said.

TPI used to build boats, but switched to turbines in 2001 for the "major growth opportunity," said Steve Lockard, CEO of the Phoenix, Ariz.-based company. The idea, he said, is to "transform the workforce away from the Maytag-type jobs of the past into jobs that can withstand the test of time going forward." (Read more...)

Renewable energy plan off to innovative start

AZ Daily Sun Editorial • February 2, 2008

There's no harm in starting small. But when it comes to jump-starting a local wind or solar energy plant, bigger is not only better. It's a financial prerequisite. That's the hurdle faced by the innovative power purchasing cooperative called NAREG that has been formed by local public agencies and businesses. As Cyndy Cole reported last week, the group has commitments to purchase the equivalent of 2 megawatts of installed renewable power, enough to serve 800 homes. But Arizona Public Service needs a commitment for at least 10 times that amount before it will sign a contract with, say, the proposed Sunshine Wind Energy plant east of Flagstaff. (Read more...)

Green power getting boost from SEDI

AZ Daily Sun • January 26, 2008 • Page One

A handful of local entities are banding together to buy "green" energy, hoping to spur renewable energy development near Flagstaff in coming years.The agreement is a result of nearly a year of work by a sub-group of the SEDI Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Action Team.

Coconino Community College, Flagstaff Medical Center, the Museum of Northern Arizona, the city of Flagstaff, Xanterra Resorts, Nestle Purina Pet Care Co. and Northern Arizona University have each said they expect to be buying about 5 percent of their power from renewable sources in the coming year. Coconino County will designate 20 percent of its electric usage as "green" power.

The combined pledges add up to more than $72,821 spent beyond typical electricity costs to buy renewable energy from Arizona Public Service Company. (Read more...)

Sustainability: A blueprint for Arizona

Arizona Republic • January 6, 2008 • Editorial

The new year makes for new beginnings and new opportunities. Arizona, among the nation's fastest-growing states, should take a moment to reflect on what it should commit itself to in 2008.

Besides many treasures to protect, our state has some bad habits to break and many areas in which to improve. The air needs to be cleared and graduation rates increased. The growth-for-growth's-sake economy should give way to competitiveness in a global knowledge economy. And no one would say more shouldn't be done to conserve water in the face of extended drought. Also, instead of negative trade-offs among different interests, we say again and again that we want to find win-win solutions to age-old problems.

In other words, Arizona's biggest resolution for 2008 should be to embrace sustainability. (Read more...)

125 Million in Energy Bill for Green Jobs Training

The Huffington Post • December 21, 2007 • Arianna Huffington

Signed into law this week as part of the Energy Bill, the Energy Independence and Security Act incorporates the Green Jobs Act of 2007, which authorizes $125 million in green-collar job training opportunities. That's enough money to train about 30,000 workers a year for jobs in emerging "green" sectors (like the solar and wind industries, green building construction, bio-fuel production and more). The new law also authorizes 20 percent of the Green Jobs Act funds to support a green Pathways Out of Poverty Program. These grants will provide targeted resources and support to low-income individuals who have the greatest need for training and career pathways in the clean energy economy. (read more...)

YouthBuild grant big boost for going green

AZ Daily Sun • December 18, 2007 • by Daily Sun Staff

Thirty-six young adults from Flagstaff's two poorest neighborhoods are about to get a little greener -- both in their wallets and in their job skills.

As for the community at large, it's about to get two new affordable houses and eight weatherized units.

The program is called YouthBuild, and Coconino County Supervisors are set tonight to accept a $1.1 million federal grant that will make it happen.

The program -- only the second in the state -- trains disadvantaged youth ages 17 to 24 from Sunnyside and Southside in green construction techniques by building or repairing housing for low-income families in their own neighborhoods.

The students will divide their time between the construction site and the classroom, and they will earn either a GED or a high school diploma, along with an Alternative Energy Technical Certificate from Coconino Community College. They will be paid a stipend of $175 a week, and at least a quarter of the group will be women. (read more...)

Entrepreneur hopes to create energy from wood waste

The Arizona Republic • Dec. 11, 2007 • by Ryan Randazzo

Arizona entrepreneur Robert Worsley once asked what would happen if he put sales catalogs in the hands of bored airplane passengers, offering them high-end motorized tie racks and garden statues.

The answer, after some adjustments, was a sometimes-turbulent company called SkyMall that was bringing in $82 million in annual revenue when he sold it in 2001. Its catalogs still are found on most U.S. flights.

Now Worsley has another idea that he's pitching, along withthe investors in Tempe-based Renegy Holdings Inc.

Worsley is asking what happens when the "green waste" from thinning forests and people trimming their trees that normally goes into a landfill is burned to make electricity. Throw in some free paper sludge from a newsprint factory and the singed wood from wildland fires that cook the western United States each summer, and Worsley predicts there's enough woody waste around North America to generate a gigawatt of electricity at dozens of biomass-fueled power plants. That's enough electricity to power about 250,000 homes in Arizona.

Worsley and Renegy plan to open a $53 million, 24-megawatt biomass power plant this spring near Snowflake. (read more...)

Welcome to Green-Collar America

E / The Environmental Magazine • Nov/Dec 2007 • by Brita Belli

The green economy is taking shape, bringing with it the promise of well-paying manufacturing jobs, of management and sales opportunities with huge growth potential and lots of niche positions for enterprising students and job seekers looking for alternative careers. On the upper tiers of the economic ladder, many CEOs and CFOs are already jumping into green jobs, and online green job directories are heavy with listings for those with established business experience. (read more...)

SEDI working to sustain economy

Arizona Daily Sun • Saturday, December 08, 2007 • Letter to the Editor by SEDI Board President Carl Taylor

I commend your editorial on Sunday, Dec. 2, regarding the importance of the community joining with NAU to create a more sustainable northern Arizona. What you omitted was that an organization to do just that has been working on sustainable economic development for nearly three years. This regional entity, the Coconino County Sustainable Economic Development Initiative (SEDI), has an active Board composed of "green businesses," governmental leaders, educators, chambers of commerce, economic development organizations and Native Americans, among others. NAU is well-represented by the Administration, The Centers for Sustainable Environments, The School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, the School of Life Sciences and Engineering, as well as numerous faculty and staff. The Coconino Community College is similarly integrated by faculty and Small Business Development Center involvement. (read more...)

Enlist community in NAU-led sustainability drive

Arizona Daily Sun Editorial • Sunday, December 02, 2007

What does it mean to be educated in an age of rapid climate change? For that matter, what are the duties of sustainable citizenship? Those are questions that Flagstaff, as a college town, is ideally suited to explore and even answer in the next few years.

Northern Arizona University, which has challenged itself to become carbon neutral by 2020, will be at the heart of the debate. But if its slogan, "NAU and Flagstaff: One community" means anything, campus leaders will include members of their host city in the challenge. (read more...)

Utilities join for major solar project

Arizona Daily Sun / Associated Press • December 9, 2007

PHOENIX -- A group of utilities wants to build Arizona's largest solar-thermal power plant, which could light up thousands of homes and help them meet the state's renewable-energy requirements.

Arizona Public Service Co., Salt River Project, Tucson Electric Power and several small companies have banded with out-of-state utilities in plans to build the major solar project. Also part of the group is the Southern California Public Power Authority and Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota, which provides power in eight Western and Midwestern states.

The companies announced Thursday that they are seeking proposals from companies interested in building the project and said that it could be located in either Arizona or Nevada. (read more...)

Home Depot offers solar system installation

The Home Depot has teamed with BP Solar to offer complete turnkey solar power packages that include:

  • Total project management from initial consultation to the six-month after-installation system check-up
  • Handling all the paperwork - taking care of the building permits and utility agreements; completing and submitting all rebate and tax credit forms
  • Custom system design
  • 25-year warranty on BP solar panels and system components
  • Guaranteed installation by contract professionals
  • Financing options

Not all Home Depots are participating, but the pilot program includes stores in Flagstaff, Prescott, Phoenix and Tucson. (Learn more...)

Green Collar Jobs: The New Cash Crop

A new report from the nonprofit American Solar Energy Society shows that as many as 1 out of 4 workers in the U.S. will be working in the renewable energy or energy efficiency industries by 2030.

This is the nation’s first comprehensive report on the size and growth of the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries – and the numbers are great news for American workers. This green collar job report shows that these industries already generate 8.5 million jobs in the U.S., and with appropriate public policy, could grow to as many as 40 million jobs by 2030.

“The green collar job boom is here,” said Neal Lurie, Director of Marketing of the American Solar Energy Society. “Renewable energy and energy efficiency are economic powerhouses.” (Read more...)

Four Corners Power Plant hoping to be greener

The Daily Times • Oct. 4, 2007 • Farmington, NM (AP)

The Four Corners Power Plant will begin experiments this fall using carbon dioxide produced by the plant to grow algae that could be distilled into biofuel.

Arizona Public Service Co., which owns the 2,040-megawatt coal-fired plant near Farmington, said it planned the experiment at the Four Corners plant after a similar experiment this summer at its Redhawk Natural Gas Power Plant west of Phoenix.

The utility and its partner, GreenFuel Technologies, said they were able to successfully grow algae at Redhawk at levels 37 times higher than corn and 140 times higher than soybeans - the main crops used for biofuel.

The algae at Redhawk absorbed between 258 and 450 tons of carbon dioxide per acre, said utility spokesman Steven Gotfried.

The utility said that once enough algae is grown, the algae are harvested, and the starches are turned into ethanol, the lipids or oils are turned into biodiesel and the protein becomes high-grade food for livestock. (Read more...)

Small trees no longer unmarketable

Arizona Daily Sun • September 21, 2007 • Flagstaff, Arizona

The small and even medium-diameter ponderosa pine used to be an unmarketable tree. That raised questions about how forest agencies in the Flagstaff region would ever afford to reduce wildfire danger in an overgrown forest if no one wanted the smaller wood. Logging mills wanted bigger-diameter wood. Builders wanted specialty beams. But forest managers on the Coconino and Kaibab national forests have seen an about-face in the last two years. Every timber sale that the Coconino National Forest has put up for bid in that time has sold, as opposed to the forest paying loggers to remove trees. (Read more...)

Handling the whole tree

Arizona Daily Sun • September 23, 2007 • Business

Logging is not a bunch of guys felling trees with chainsaws anymore, as it was just a few years ago for Southwest Forest Products. The company has invested millions into machinery to speed along forest- thinning projects, including current work off Woody Mountain Road. Workers there use logging machines that can bunch, hold and cut a handful of trees at a time. The machines looks like large forklifts with fingers, holding trees vertically as a sawblade cuts them off at the base. Another piece of equipment drags the trees to a clearing and stacks them. Then an excavator with a special attachment grabs each tree, removes all of its branches, cuts off the top and stacks it in another pile.

Southwest is removing about 120 log truckloads of logs per week from the Woody Mountain Road area, as part of a larger effort to protect Flagstaff from wildfires by thinning along the forest boundaries, particularly southwest of town. About 5,000 truckloads of wood will come out of this area in the course of a year. (Read more...)

National forest visitors have ecotourism potential

Arizona Daily Sun Editorial • July 22, 2007

It's a rustic scene right out of a Zane Grey novel: The tired travelers, passing through the forest, build a campfire for dinner, then break out their tents and bedrolls for a restful night in the peaceful forest. It's also a scene that, at least in the Coconino National Forest, isn't as common as it used to be. A recent survey found that just 17 percent of all visits to the Coconino included camping on the forest versus 65 percent that involved a stay at a local motel or rental house. In fact, the typical visitor to the Coconino -- white, middle-aged, upper middle-class with an interest in less strenuous recreational activities like walking, viewing nature, driving for pleasure and "relaxing" -- bears a strong resemblance to the typical visitor at another national attraction: the Grand Canyon. (Read more...)

Navajo-owned FlexCrete Building Systems receives Arizona Innovative Award

Navajo Hopi Observer • August 22, 2007 • Page, Arizona

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano presented the Arizona Innovative Award to FlexCrete Building Systems, a Navajo-owned business, on Aug. 16. The award is to acknowledge the partnership of creating employment in the northwest Arizona community of Page by utilizing fly ash to create aerated block that has an insulating value.

Navajo Nation council delegate Leonard Teller, FlexCrete Building Systems chairperson, thanked Gov. Napolitano for taking note of the unique partnership between the city of Page and a Navajo Enterprise in creating employment and producing an environmentally friendly building product that he termed "a gold mine."

Gov. Napolitano offered accolades to the Navajo Nation FlexCrete Building Systems for creating an innovative building product that is composed of a waste product, and used in an environmentally friendly manner. (Read more...)

Navajo-owned Keya Earth builds green

Window Rock , Arizona • July 27, 2007 • Indian Country Today

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - All hands were muddy, caked in red dirt that had been blended with straw and water to create an earthen plaster. A dozen volunteers spread the blend across bales of straw stacked about 10 high, to insulate a home being built for a Navajo family. The 750-square-foot home being erected in the capital of the Navajo Nation is the first of what the Navajo-owned startup company Keya Earth hopes will soon become a trend across Indian country.

''We need homes. There's housing entities out there trying to do it, and there's constantly new, young families,'' said Gordon Isaac, 37, the president of Arizona-based Keya Earth, which helped coordinate the project. ''We're offering an alternative that is community-driven.''

A movement encouraging sustainable and renewable energy efforts has been spreading across Indian country, marking a return to tradition by harnessing natural forces like sunlight, wind and water. (Read more...)

New Renewable Energy Standard for Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona • June 18, 2007 • RenewableEnergyAccess.com

Arizona Utilities must generate 15% of their electricity from renewable resources by 2025 under a renewable energy standard (RES) approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission last October and approved by the State's Attorney General in June. The RES mandates that 30% of the renewable power must come from distributed generators, creating a huge potential market for photovoltaics (PV) in the state. (Read more...)

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