SunPower goes BIG Solar for Toyota

Toyota and SunPower Corporation have complete one of the largest single-roof solar power installations in North America. The 2.3-megawatt SunPower system will begin operation in early October at Toyota's North America Parts Center California (NAPCC) in Ontario, California.

Toyota expects the solar installation will provide nearly 60 percent of the total electricity needs for the 760,000-square foot NAPCC.

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Please don't preheat your oven, really

When temperatures drop, home cooks break out the roasting pan. But recipes contain a lot of outdated lore, particularly admonishments to preheat your oven. Although pre-heating may be helpful for certain sensitive tasks like baking, your meat and vegetables probably aren’t going to notice the difference.

How this helps

When you preheat an oven, you’re spending a lot of energy to heat up a small amount of air — which then goes whooshing out when you open the door to put in the food. Preheating can be an especially pernicious habit if you turn on the oven before you start doing food prep, leaving it “running on empty” for half an hour or more.

More information

• The best source of information is your own oven. Experiment to see what works best for you.
• This Treehugger article digs into the preheating issue and some related myths.

Bailout helps Solar Industry

by a vote of 263-171, the U.S. House of Representatives passed historic legislation that extends the 30-percent federal investment tax credit for both residential and commercial solar installations for 8 years. This landmark legislation is part of H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, designed to address the U.S. financial crisis. It is the most significant federal policy ever enacted for the solar industry. President Bush has already signed the bill into law.

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Bailout helps out bikers (bicyclists, of course)

Buried in the financial rescue bill passed by Congress last week is a provision to encourage bike commuting. The idea is to level the playing field for cyclists, who currently can’t get benefits like those available for participants in car or van pools or other programs designed to reduce traffic congestion.

Starting in January, employers can reimburse bike commuters up to $20/month for the “purchase of a bicycle, bicycle improvements, repair, and storage, if such bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment” and have such  reimbursements get the same favorable tax treatment as other benefits. Twenty bucks a month isn’t a lot, but as a bike owner, I was thinking about bike-commuting more and this woudl help, I think the concept is very cool!

Meanwhile, Caltrain, which runs commuter rail service into San Francisco from points south is trying to figure out how to provide more bike capacity on its trains. All trains have a specially fitted bike car with room for 32 bikes and passengers. During rush hour, some trains have two of these bike cars. But the number of bike commuters is growing (now 8% of Caltrain’s ridership), leading to overcrowding and frustration among cyclists when they can’t get a spot on the train. Waiting on the platform for the next train 30-60 minutes later is no fun, especially if you’re trying to get to work on time.

Caltrain is using all the cars it has, so this won’t be an easy problem to solve. In a plan approved last week, officials said they will increase bike-parking facilities at stations and experiment with removing some seats in train cars to make room for more bikes. A long term solution probably involves a big investment in more bike cars and more frequent train service.

Save Energy, Save the world (and your computer)

If you’re not going to use your computer for more than 20 minutes, turn off just the monitor. If your computer will stand idle for more than 2 hours, turn both it and the monitor off. Ensuring your computer is powered down, either manually with a power strip or by setting your computer’s power management features, saves money and cuts your greenhouse gas emissions.

How this helps

Powering computers requires a substantial amount of energy. Yet most computers are only used a fraction of the time they are on. Adjusting your computer’s power settings to save energy means the computer and monitor will switch into sleep mode when standing idle. This energy saving change will cut your computer’s electricity use by up to 80 percent and put $25 to $75 in yearly power costs back in your pocket.

Read this tip in full at GreenYour.com.

More information

• Energy Star: how to save $25 to $75 annually through power management
• UC Berkeley’s guide to power management in PCs and monitors

Related tips

• Recycle old computers, or donate them to charity
• Use a smart power strip
• Make sure your next computer is an Energy Star computer

People unite to create green neighborhood spaces

Housing prices may be crashing, but there's a new green networking trend that is picking up momentum in neighborhoods across the U.S. Citizens are abandoning expectations that the government is going to implement truly sustainable policies, and they are banding together to create their own green communities and neighborhoods. One example is the Nubanusit Neighborhood in New Hampshire, which is a green neighborhood of single family homes and multiplex units that share an organic farm, office space and common space. According to Lono Hunter, resident of the eco-neighborhood, "In terms of actually living in a way that can help the environment, I think you need the power of numbers." The U.S. Green Building Council is picking up on the trend and says it will begin applying a version of its Leadership in Energy Environmental Design (LEED) rating system to entire neighborhoods starting in 2009.

Learn more

Go Organic

• How to Make Compost
• Washing Clothes Without Electricity
• Canning 101

Learn how to rely less on the system and more on your own abilities here.

New Solar Panels for commercial rooftops

Solyndra, Inc. has introduced a new solar photovoltaic system for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra's PV system
is designed to generate significantly more solar electricity on an annual basis from typical low-slope commercial
rooftops with lower installation costs than conventional PV flat panel technologies. Solyndra is currently shipping its systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, to fulfill more than $1.2 billion of multi-year contracts with customers in Europe and the United States.

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First Solar Breaks Ground on Manufacturing Expansion

First Solar held the official groundbreaking
ceremony
for the expansion of its Perrysburg, Ohio facility, on 13 October 2008. Upon
completion, the expansion will increase the annual
capacity
at the Perrysburg facility to approximately 192
megawatts,
based on run rates for the second quarter of 2008.

The
new investment will add at least 134 new jobs to the
Company's
current workforce of 700 at its Perrysburg facility.
The expansion,
announced on Aug. 18, 2008, will add approximately
500,000
square feet of manufacturing, research and development
and
office space.



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A new wind is rising

Offshore wind is poised to explode:

• Earlier this year, Delaware
  became the first state to approve an offshore wind project, a
  200-megawatt installation that beat out proposals for coal- and natural
  gas-fired plants.
• Rhode Island was next up, with plans for a facility that will supply 15% of the state’s electricity.
• New Jersey recently followed suit, granting rights for what could be a 346-megawatt facility.
• Texas, already tops in the U.S. for land-based wind energy, is pushing forward with a project on the Gulf Coast.
• North Carolina is starting to look at off-shore wind, and New York is likely to do likewise to meet its clean energy goals.

With the exception of the Texas project, all of these proposed installations will be built in an area known as the Mid-Atlantic Bight. This region is, to paraphrase Ron Burgundy, kind of a big deal.

This coastal region running from Massachusetts to North Carolina contained up to 330,000 megawatts of average electrical capacity. This was, in other words, an amount of guaranteed, bankable power that was larger, in terms of energy equivalence, than the entire mid-Atlantic coast’s total energy demand — not just for electricity but for heating, for gasoline, for diesel and for natural gas. Indeed the wind off the mid-Atlantic represented a full third of the Department of Energy’s estimate of the total American offshore resource of 900,000 megawatts.

Savvier community relations explains some of the recent success offshore wind projects have had in overcoming NIMBY objections like those that scuttled the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts. It helps that these new projects are being built farther from land. And rising
fossil fuel prices have also had a big impact.

Of course, fossil fuel prices are now dropping. The credit crunch is drying up capital for wind projects. And booming demand has led to a shortage of turbines. In short, the long-term trends are looking good. In the near term, wind may have a bumpy ride.

Help the Environment and yout Wallet - Line Dry your clothes

With the rising electric rates, we have begun line drying almost all our clothes. Instead of the 5 dryers full of clothes each week (3 boys, 2 of which are teenagers), we may use one dryer every 2 weeks.

Drying clothes on a line can take a little longer than throwing
clothes into a dryer, but it doesn’t have to be an unpleasant task. In
addition to cutting down on energy use, other benefits can include
enjoying the outdoors or humidifying the air in your house (when
clothes line-dry indoors).

How this helps

Air-drying some or all of your wet laundry could save you $135 in
energy costs every year, prevent tons of carbon from entering the
atmosphere, and result in less wear-and-tear on clothes.

More information

• Read the full tip at GreenYour.com
• Cheap Green Laundry at NYTimes.com

Related tips

• Run your appliances at night
• Wash your clothes in cold water
• Wash only full loads of laundry

Users Guide to the Backyard Chicken Movement

Sustainability Tip of the Week

In cities across the U.S., health and organic-minded "locavores" are starting to raise their own chickens. This backyard farmers movement is a direct result of the birth and evolution of the "eat local" consciousness. On a city by city basis, a nationwide grassroots campaign is gradually convincing municipalities to drop previous laws that did not allow small flocks of poultry to be raised in city limits. "Fresh is not what you buy at the grocery store. Fresh is when you go into your backyard, put it in your bag, and eat it," said Carol-Ann Sayle, co-owner of an urban farm in Austin, Texas, located within walking distance from the state capitol. "Everyone should have their own henhouse in their own backyard."

Learn more

Organic Facts of the Week

• If
  organic farming methods were practiced on all the planet's food-growing
  land, it would be like taking more than 1.5 billion cars off the road.
  
  
• You can increase your antioxidant intake by 30 percent by choosing organic.
  
  
• The average child in America is exposed to five pesticides daily in their food and drinking water.
  
  
• The
  U.S. water system is regularly contaminated above safe limits
  immediately following chemical fertilizer applications to farm fields.
  
  
• Farms in developing countries that use organic techniques produce an average of 79% more than farms that don't.
  
  

October 24th - National Call-In Day for Farmworker Rights!

Whole Foods: Can you Hear Us Now?

Despite
a mobilization by thousands of organic consumers, Teamsters, and United
Farm Workers, sending in petitions and handing out leaflets at Whole
Foods Market stores in 33 states, WFM is refusing to stand up for
workers rights! Oregon-based Beef Northwest, the feedlot corporation
that fattens up Country Natural Beef's herds, refuses to negotiate with
the United Farm Workers in good faith. Whole Foods in the single
largest seller of Country Natural Beef in the U.S. Joining leading
elected officials in Oregon, Presidential Candidate Senator Barack
Obama, in a letter earlier this year urged Beef Northwest to sit down
and negotiate a contract with the United Farm Workers. In the spirit of
Cesar Chavez, please support the United Farmworkers Union drive at the
Beef Northwest feedlots in Oregon and send a message to the world:
eliminate labor exploitation in the organic and natural food sectors.

• Call and fax Whole Foods' Corporate Headquarters and you local Whole Foods' General Manager.
• Spread the word in your community and send a letter to the editor in support of sweatfree organic and natural food.
• Send a letter to Whole Foods executives here.

Fighting Organic Label Fraud - Round One

Legal Victory for Organic Consumers

As
reported previously in Organic Bytes, the Organic Consumers Association
and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps have sued organic certifier Ecocert in
the ongoing campaign to stop the certification and misleading labeling
of fake organic personal care products that are fundamentally made-up
of synthetic ingredients and petrochemicals. Dr. Bronner's has launched
a further umbrella lawsuit against specific companies who label their
products as "organic" but have primary ingredients that are synthetic.
After hearing oral arguments earlier this month, the San Francisco
County Superior Court ruled on October 8 that Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps
can proceed with its lawsuit seeking to compel so-called "organic"
companies and certifiers to drop, or stop certifying, deceptive organic
label and brand claims. Brands denounced by OCA and Bronner's include
Avalon "Organics", Jason "Pure, Natural & Organic", Nature's Gate
"Organics", Kiss My Face "Obsessively Organic", Giovanni "Organic
Cosmetics", Head "Organics", Desert Essence "Organics" and Stella
McCartney's CARE "100% Organic".

Learn more