Workshops, keynoters, and all the other details set for Enrgy Fair, June 18-20
Each year the MREA Energy Fair transforms rural Central Wisconsin into the global hot spot for renewable energy education. The Energy Fair brings over 20,000 people from nearly every state in the U.S. and several countries around the world to learn, connect with others and ready them for action at home. The Energy Fair is the nation’s longest running energy education event of its kind.
The Energy Fair features:
•Over 275 exhibitors – sustainable living and energy products
•Over 200 workshops – from introductory level to advanced hands-on education
•Clean Energy Car Show – demonstration vehicles and workshops
•Green Home Pavilion – focused on building and remodeling in a sustainable way
•Green Building Demso – see sustainable building techniques in action
•Sustainable Tables – workshops, chef demos, and a farmers’ market bringing sustainability to your dinner table
•Inspirational keynotes, lively entertainment, great food, and local beer.
The Energy Fair is held in Custer, WI just seven miles east of Stevens Point. Join us for the 21st Annual Energy Fair June 18-20, 2010. For more information about the Fair, contact the Midwest Renewable Energy Association at 715-592-6595.
Net-zero home is agency's goal
From an article by Pamela Powers in the Eau Claire Leader Telegram:
MENOMONIE – From photoelectric panes to its solar-powered hot water panels to its geothermal heating and cooling system, a duplex in Menomonie is being transformed into an energy efficient version of its old self.
The West Wisconsin Community Action Agency purchased the duplex on 550th Ave. and is using federal economic stimulus money to make the building not only nicer but more energy efficient.
Rail ideas await their fate in Milwaukee
Three stalled plans for Wisconsin train travel get reanalyzed in the election year
From an article by Larry Sandler in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Railroads and politics have one thing in common: They’re all about the timing.
Trains run by schedules. Politicians wait for the right moment to make their moves.
And timing is everything for rail transportation in southern Wisconsin, where political circumstances have brought three different rail transit plans to the forefront simultaneously – only to thrust them into an election-year controversy where some plans may not survive.
After years of study and debate, the state has landed an $810 million federal grant to build a high-speed train line from Milwaukee to Madison. At the same time, Milwaukee-area authorities are seeking federal permission to start preliminary engineering on a $283.5 million commuter rail line from Milwaukee to Kenosha and a $95.8 million modern streetcar line in downtown Milwaukee, two other long-discussed ideas.
Officially, the three plans are not related, except that all three systems would converge at Milwaukee’s downtown Amtrak-Greyhound station, where the streetcar could carry Amtrak or KRM Commuter Link passengers “the last mile” to their destinations, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said. Supporters also tout all three as ways to stimulate economic development and improve mobility.
Politically, all three are linked in the minds of their opponents, as symbols of unnecessary taxation and skewed transportation spending priorities, say Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and state Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine). Walker, Vos and their allies oppose new sales taxes – which are not currently proposed for any of the rail lines – and want transportation dollars spent on roads and buses.
Although the high-speed rail planning started under former Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, a longtime passenger train booster, the train debate in recent years has turned partisan, pitting Democratic rail backers against GOP critics. Now the rail projects have emerged as an issue in the fall governor’s race – in which Barrett is the likely Democratic nominee and Walker is facing former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann for the GOP nod.
Walker has taken the hardest line against all three projects, vowing to kill the high-speed train project if he’s elected. He has long argued against the streetcar line and recently came out against the KRM, a project he had not vocally opposed before.
Neumann, meanwhile, has said he would analyze the costs and benefits of the high-speed train, but would end work on it if “we find this thing is going to be an economic boondoggle for the people of this state.” He says he would apply the same approach to state aid for the KRM and the streetcar line.
Last-minute changes weaken state’s clean energy goals
Disregarding the pleas from RENEW and others for a veto, Doyle signed Senate Bill 273, as reported by Lisa Kaiser in the Shepherd Expess, Milwaukee:
Were the state’s renewable energy goals weakened during the final days of the legislative session?
The answer depends on how you view a new bill, signed into law by Gov. Jim Doyle last week, which expands the definition of “renewable energy source” without increasing the amount of renewable energy that must be used by the state’s utilities.
“We went backwards, not forwards,” said state Rep. Spencer Black (D-Madison), a champion of clean energy. “If you don’t increase the percentage of renewable energy that must be used, and you include the new technologies, you decrease the amount of wind and solar to be used.”
A Last-Minute Amendment without Public Debate
The bill had been proposed last year with little fanfare. A public hearing was held last September to add some new technologies to the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS)—the state’s definition of what is a renewable energy source.
That designation is very important to a “clean energy” company, because it allows the company to sell its electricity to a utility and help that utility reach the 10% goal. Without that designation, the electricity isn’t as desirable to utilities that need to decrease their reliance on fossil fuels such as coal.
Last fall, the new technologies didn’t seem to raise too many alarms—for example, it included solar light pipes manufactured by Orion Energy Systems in Manitowoc.
Besides, the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA), which would have raised the state’s renewable energy goals from 10% to 25% by 2025, was attracting far more attention than this rather innocuous bill.
But just hours before the vote on April 15, a controversial amendment was added to the bill by Sen. Majority Leader Russ Decker, Milwaukee Sen. Jeff Plale and Green Bay Sen. David Hansen to include even more technologies. Among them is “synthetic gas created by the plasma gasification of waste,” a cutting-edge technology that takes just about any kind of waste, heats it so intensely it turns into a gas, then uses that gas to create electricity that can be sold to utilities and put on the power grid.
Without public debate, the state Senate approved the amended bill 25-8 and the Assembly followed suit a week later on a voice vote with no record of who voted “aye” or “nay.”
Doyle signed it last week without revision, although he did note that it was “a difficult one to sign” since CEJA—with its higher standards—died in the state Legislature.
Wind turbines fit with farms
From an editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal:
Congratulations to the Columbia County Board for recognizing last week that wind turbines complement farmland preservation.
The board agreed Wednesday that farmers in the towns of Randolph and Scott can lease small amounts of land to We Energies for wind turbines without violating their state agreements to keep their land in agricultural production.
The board’s decision is wise because the turbines will give each farmer thousands of dollars in extra income to keep their farm operations going. And the amount of land taken out of production for turbine foundations and access roads will be miniscule compared to the total size of cropland that will remain.
We Energies also has agreed to buy two homes from neighbors who were concerned about living within a quarter mile of some of the turbines.
That means this exciting wind project in northeast Columbia County can now move forward with 90 turbines scattered across some 17,000 acres of productive farmland.
We Energies started developing the site, called Glacier Hills Energy Park, last week. It’s located about 50 miles northeast of Madison.
The energy company hopes to fire up the wind park by the end of next year or early 2012. It will produce enough clean energy to power 45,000 homes.
Wisconsin’s wind industry is just taking off, and more clean energy is needed to reduce Wisconsin’s reliance on dirty coal and gas that’s imported from other states and foreign countries.