Dinosaur oil

Monday, December 28, 2009

One of serveral posters from WWF. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Another brewery adds renewable solar power

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Along with City Brewing in La Crosse the Grumpy Troll added a solar electric system, as described in an article by Gena Kittner in the Wisconsin State Journal:

Photovoltaic panels installed last week on the roof of Mount Horeb's Grumpy Troll will soon enable the bar and restaurant to harness solar power to fuel everything from beer-brewing to pizza-making.

"A lot of the energy will be used for the brewery, as well as everything else that we do," said owner Doug Welshinger, adding the beer mash itself will still be boiled using natural gas.

Once the switch is flipped , probably by the end of the month, Welshinger said the business will use about 95 percent of the electricity generated by the solar panels. "We do consume a lot of energy, there's no question about it," he said.

The Mount Horeb Utilities will purchase all of the energy generated by the 38 solar electric panels - most at 30 cents a kilowatt hour - about three times the rate that a business customer would pay for the same electricity.

The Grumpy Troll, at 105 S. Second St., will continue to purchase all of its electricity from the local utility at the normal rate, but will receive a monthly bill credit for the green power generated by the panels, helping to offset its total energy costs.

The higher rate for sending electricity to the utility is part of an incentive program offered by Sun Prairie-based WPPI Energy, which includes Mount Horeb Utilities as a member. The higher rate will last about 10 years, said Ann Rodriguez, spokeswoman with WPPI Energy.

Brewery digester powers healthcare network

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

An article by Diane Greer in BioCycle gives a detailed description of the biodigester at Gunderson Lutheran:

Gundersen Lutheran Health Systems and City Brewing Company, both based in La Crosse, Wisconsin, are partnering on an innovative cogeneration project fueled by biogas from the brewery’s waste treatment process. The system, which started operating in October, is expected to generate 3 million kilowatt hours (kWh) per year of electricity, equivalent to 8 to 10 percent of the power used on Gundersen Lutheran’s La Crosse and Onlaska campuses. City Brewing will employ waste heat from the system, estimated at 17,000 mmBtus/year, to warm its anaerobic digesters producing the biogas. . . .

Increasing Transportation Choices and Cutting Foreign Oil Use with the RTA

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

222 S. Hamilton Street, Lower level conference room
January 7, 2010

An informal brown bag lunch and discussion at the Madison Peak Oil Group's monthly meeting with energy consultant and county board Supervisor Brett Hulsey who will update the Group on the status of the regional transportation authority (RTA) and other transportation plans in Dane County and Madison, including the multi-modal station option at First and Gorham Streets, called the Yahara Station.

Invite friends, relatives, co-workers, and anyone else with an interest to the brown bag lunch at noon in the lower level conference room at 222 S. Hamilton Street, Madison.

Marketing the benefits of green real estate

Monday, December 21, 2009

From an article by Kren RIvedal in the Wisconsin State Journal:

You won’t find a glossy folder in Sara Alvarado’s Near East Side real estate office, or a pen, pad, envelope or sheet of printer paper that isn’t made of recycled material.

Alvarado, who co-owns the seven-member company with her husband, Carlos, doesn’t even have a fax machine.

In an industry buried in contracts and fliers, the Alvarado Real Estate Group works as paper-free as possible, using E-Fax and a scanner to send and receive documents electronically, printing out pages only when and if they have to.

The office itself, a smallish space at less than 1,000 square feet on South Livingston Street, boasts other “green” or eco-friendly and sustainable features. Among other things, it has a low-flow toilet, an air-cleaning system, formaldehyde-free furniture, a used wooden conference table, a concrete floor finished with a non-toxic sealant, and a reception counter made of Dakota Burl, a composite material that looks like wood but consists of pressed sunflower seeds.

Clearly, no one can say that Sara Alvarado doesn’t practice what she preaches. For the past five years, she has focused much of her effort on advancing the cause of green building and remodeling, a practice that conserves energy and materials, encourages recycling and sustainability, and aims to cut costs while improving health and safety.

“I think people look for meaning and purpose in life and this is something we tapped into that just feels right,” Alvarado said. “It’s an opportunity to make a difference in the world on a global level.”

Join lobby effort at Conservation Lobby Day, January 26

Friday, December 18, 2009

Each year citizens from across Wisconsin descend on the Capitol to share their conservation values with their Legislators. Since the first Conservation Lobby Day in 2005, it has grown from just 100 citizens to more than 600! As we head into the 6th annual Conservation Lobby Day, there is one thing we can guarantee-when citizens come together to make their conservation values known, legislators listen, and conservation victories soon follow!

The reauthorization of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund and the passage of the Strong Great Lakes Compact are two great examples of how citizen lobbying resulted in ground-breaking conservation laws.

Conservation Lobby Day is a unique opportunity to share your conservation stories and experiences with legislators and have a huge impact on conservation policies affecting all of Wisconsin.

This Conservation Lobby Day, you can help to:

* Preserve Groundwater: Wisconsin's Buried Treasure: manage Wisconsin's groundwater resources to preserve lakes, streams, wetlands and drinking water supplies.
* Stop Global Warming in Wisconsin: address the threats of global warming in Wisconsin through clean, renewable energy jobs and energy conservation.
* Restore Conservation Integrity: return Wisconsin to an Independent DNR Secretary and a timely appointment of Natural Resource Board members.
* Protect Wisconsin's Drinking Water: protect Wisconsin's drinking water supplies by making sure we safely spread agricultural, municipal, and industrial waste.

For a 1-page brief on each of these issues and more information about Conservation Lobby Day 2010, go to: http://www.conservationvoters.org/Public/index.php?custID=110

Registration starts at 9:00am on the day of the event, but you MUST REGISTER BEFORE JANUARY 19th by visiting http://www.conservationvoters.org/Public/index.php?custID=110 and signing up. There you can learn more about the issues in order to better prepare you for the day's events.

Litany of errors mars analysis of bill to enact recommendations of global warming task force

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

From a news release issued by the coalition for Clean, Responsible Energy for Wisconsin’s Economy (CREWE):

(MADISON, Wis.)—The coalition for Clean, Responsible Energy for Wisconsin’s Economy (CREWE) on Tuesday released a fact sheet detailing the errors with the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute’s (WPRI) November 12th report on the adverse economic effects of the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming recommendations.

“The WPRI report is so wildly flawed that it has no place in any legislative debate on the task force recommendations,” said Thad Nation, executive director of CREWE. “Not only does the report analyze many policies that aren’t even included in the Clean Energy Jobs Act, but it takes a piecemeal approach, failing to analyze the cumulative effect the policies will have on our state.”

Among the errors included in the report, titled “The Economics of Climate Change Proposals in Wisconsin”:
• 8 of the 13 policies analyzed aren’t included in the Clean Energy Jobs Act
• Models policies that would impact the state’s general fund, despite the fact that the Clean Energy Jobs Act includes no tax increases
• Ignores the fact that low carbon fuels will be produced in Wisconsin and other
Midwestern states, while conventional gasoline is largely imported from overseas
• Fails to take into account decreased electricity demand due to energy efficiency and conservation investments outlined in the recommendations.

In addition, the authors of the report used a “black box” economic model to come to their conclusions – meaning the reader is only given the inputs and outputs, without any knowledge of how the statistical analysis was done. In order to allow others to properly analyze the report’s conclusions, the model that was used should be made publicly available for review.