Gen. Wesley Clark on wind, veterans and energy security
Farmers can save money, help environment with renewable energy
From a a story by Tim Morrissey of Public News Service:
SPRING VALLEY, Wis. – Increasing numbers of Wisconsin farmers are cutting their power bills and reducing their carbon footprints by switching to alternative sources of energy.
Harriet Behar, an organic specialist with the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), says farmers use a lot of energy in producing food.
“From grinding feed to heating hot water in a milk-house to just cleaning grain, fixing machinery – all kinds of things that are done on farms that use energy, and they pay pretty hefty electric bills.”
A typical monthly electric bill for the average farm can run $300 to $400. Behar says she is seeing a trend of farmers using several forms of alternative energy.
“Solar photovoltaics for electricity; wind for electricity; and then solar hot-water heating, and biodiesel, where they grow a crop and use that as fuel.”
MOSES, Behar says, is involved in helping farmers make the transition to cleaner forms of energy.
“We’ve had workshops at our Organic University and also at the Organic Farming Conference, both on looking at alternative sources of energy.”
Some state and federal grants and programs are available to help farmers develop alternative energy sources, but Behar says many decide to do it on their own.
“Even without government funding, they have participated more in this, because they like making that investment in their infrastructure on the farm, for a kind of long-term sustainability.”
Illinois town aims to make electric cars … Normal
From an article by Kari Lydersenin Midwest Energy News:
Normal, Illinois, is home to Mitsubishi’s only U.S. manufacturing plant, and residents of the town 130 miles southwest of Chicago are known for embracing sustainability and renewable energy. Many families have two incomes and two cars, and “are very educated and early adopters of technology,” in the words of Mayor Chris Koos.
So about a year ago, Koos and other civic leaders decided to dub Normal and its adjacent “sister city,” Bloomington, “EVTown” and ask Mitsubishi to make it among the early destinations for its new all-electric car, the i-MiEV.
As typically happens with electric and hybrid cars, Mistubishi will roll out the i-MiEV in larger coastal markets first. Drivers in smaller towns, especially in the Midwest, will have to wait many months longer than urbanites to buy an electric vehicle or hybrid from their local dealer. Normal town planner Mercy Davison said locals were disappointed in how long they had to wait for the Nissan Leaf.
So Mitsubishi agreed to dedicate up to 1,000 i-MiEVs for Bloomington-Normal drivers. With a combined population of about 130,000, that would mean a considerably high proportion of families buying new i-MiEVs.
“It’s a big goal, but we think it’s doable,” said Koos.
A bright idea from Milwaukee
From an article by Dan Haugen in Midwest Energy News:
A mobile app that helps people perform their own home lighting audits is the winner of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “Apps for the Environment” challenge.
Light Bulb Finder was created by a Milwaukee, Wisc., app developer called Eco Hatchery. Co-founders Adam Borut and Andrea Nylund learned they won the challenge last week, and on Tuesday they’ll be in Washington, D.C., to accept the recognition. . . .
The app was released for iPhone and Android in late 2010. It lets people walk around their home and use icons to identify the type of bulb currently used in each light fixture. After entering a zip code and the estimated daily hours of use for each bulb, the app suggests more efficient replacement bulbs, as well as a detailed projection of savings, in dollars and carbon emissions.
“We want to provide people with meaningful, individualized feedback so that they can make the smartest decision based on their priorities,” Borut said.
Sierra Club issues notice of intent to sue We Energies for coal ash spill
A news release from the Sierra Club:
Madison, Wisconsin – Today, the Sierra Club issued a Notice of Intent to sue We Energies for the October 31 flood of coal ash into Lake Michigan when an old landfill located on the bluff collapsed at a construction site at the company’s Oak Creek coal plant.
“We Energies must be held responsible for the toxic mess at the bottom of Lake Michigan,” explained Jennifer Feyerherm of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “We Energies has essentially turned Lake Michigan, a national treasure that supplies drinking water to over 10 million people, into a coal ash dump. We Energies filled a ravine next to Lake Michigan with coal ash, and it is that ash that now lies at the bottom of the lake. This was a predicted and preventable disaster.”
A biologist from the Southeastern Wisconsin Planning Commission raised concerns about the structural stability of the bluff when We Energies was planning to develop the site. As construction proceeded, the bluff collapsed, covering the shoreline with an estimated 25,000 cubic yards of coal ash and soil and dumping 2,500 cubic yards of coal ash and soil into the lake.
The Notice of Intent to sue alleges that the pollutants in the coal ash at the bottom of Lake Michigan “pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.”
Coal ash is the toxic byproduct of burning coal. Heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury, chromium, and molybdenum remain in the ash after coal is burned. These toxic metals are linked to many health effects including cancer, birth defects, kidney damage, and nerve damage. In fact, studies have likened the risk of living near a coal ash site to smoking a pack of cigarettes each day. These toxic metals also put our fragile Great Lakes ecosystem at risk, threatening aquatic habitat and building up in the food chain.
“There are more than 2,000 toxic coal ash sites in the U.S. polluting our air and water, and now there is a new one on the bottom of Lake Michigan,” noted Melissa Warner, a volunteer leader with the Sierra Club that lives south of the coal ash dump. “My family’s drinking water comes from the lake. We Energies must clean up its mess and prevent any disaster like this from happening again.”
To date, there has been little information available to the local community about where the coal ash in the lake is going, what it will take to clean it up, and when the cleanup might be completed. Today’s Notice of Intent to sue is the first step in legal action against We Energies to force the company to clean up the toxic coal ash.
Ever since the TVA coal ash disaster in 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to enact national protections to stop this kind of disastrous spill from happening.
“Communities here in Wisconsin and across the nation remain at risk and unprotected,” concluded Feyerherm. “The burning of coal is a public health menace. This spill is yet another illustration that as long as we are still mining and burning coal, our families and communities are paying the price.”
More posts on the spill and utilities.