by jboullion | Jun 21, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a story on WSAW-TV, Wausau:
In the next three days, 20 high school students will have already gone to college and completed a credit.
It’s all part of Mid-State Technical College’s renewable energy academy.
Today, college professors showed how oil and coal has impacted our environment.
The students studied how renewable energy sources such as solar panels and bio-diesel fuels compare to energy consumption and cost.
Many of them say they never realized how many types of alternative energies are out there.
“How much waste is coming out in each of them just learning about it was kinda cool cause you can learn what to prevent in the future,” said 9th grader Samantha Contreres.
“I want renewable energy resources to happen so that we have a better future for our grandchildren and children ahead of us,” said 9th grader Christopher Herron.
by jboullion | Jun 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
Visit RENEW in booth C2 at the 21st Annual Energy Fair June 18-20, 2010.
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.
Advance Energy Fair tickets and Reservations for Back 40 Camping will be available starting April 1st.
The Energy Fair features:
•Over 275 exhibitors – sustainable living and energy products
•Over 200 workshops – from introductory level to hands-on education
•Clean Energy Car Show – demonstration vehicles and workshops
•Green Home Pavilion – focused on building and remodeling in a sustainable way
•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 or visit the website: www.the-mrea.org.
by jboullion | Jun 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Nicole Strittmater in the Wausau Daily Herald:
An environmental superstar will visit Custer this week to help inspire central Wisconsin residents to go greener.
Bill McKibben, who wrote the first book about global warming 21 years ago and recently created an international campaign called 350.org to solve the climate crisis, is a keynote speaker for the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair on Saturday.
“I very much wanted to come, particularly because the kind of people who will be at the fair are the kind of people we need to reach,” said McKibben, 49, from his home in Ripton, Vt.
He spends the majority of his time traveling the world promoting his 350.org campaign, which draws its name from the parts per million of carbon that can safely be in the atmosphere. His focus is to get the planet from 392 parts per million of carbon, where it is currently, to 350 by encouraging people to take on environmentally conscious projects.
“We want all kinds of people who are good at doing practical things — putting up solar panels, community gardens, starting bike programs,” he said.
In 2009, he and his 350.org team coordinated 5,200 rallies and demonstrations in 181 countries in one day, which news outlets dubbed the largest globally coordinated rally of any kind.
This October, he’s organizing a global work party. He wants people worldwide to do environmentally friendly projects, such as putting up solar panels Oct. 10.
by jboullion | Jun 14, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Adam Wise in the Wausau Daily Herald:
GRAND RAPIDS — Mid-State Technical College expects to break ground on its renewable energy program center this fall, with the new teaching space ready for students by August 2011.
The project will include $1.5 million worth of new construction and about $750,000 in upgrades and remodeling at the Wisconsin Rapids campus, said Elizabeth Moran, MSTC spokeswoman. Somerville, an architectural company from Green Bay, is leading the design phase.
About 10,000 square feet of additional space will be developed, including several classroom labs and a rooftop laboratory for students to test wind and solar technologies, said MSTC Facilities Director Craig Hjelle. Several labs also will be remodeled.
“They will be rather high structures, so we can do the stuff with renewables and urban forestry,” Hjelle said.
The college — which has Stevens Point, Marshfield and Wisconsin Rapids campuses and a center in the city of Adams — produced its first graduates from its five renewable energy programs this spring.
by jboullion | Jun 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in the Sheboygan Press:
We don’t yet know the final solution to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, so we surely don’t know the final cost of the cleanup and the restoration of the fishery and the beaches.
But what we should know by now is that offshore oil drilling will have to be more closely monitored in the future. We should also know that we have to make a deeper commitment to reducing our dependence on oil — foreign and domestic.
The Disaster in the Gulf, as the now nearly two-month-long oil spill is being called, should be the wake-up call of all wake-up calls. It should spark bold action — in the offshore drilling regulatory process and in weaning the U.S. from oil.
President George W. Bush said in 2006 that the U.S. was “addicted to oil.” Yet today, we remain as hooked on oil and gas as we were then — and, like any addiction, it can be destructive. We are seeing its effect now in the Gulf of Mexico.
Although the U.S. needs to reduce its reliance on oil, there is no way to go “cold-turkey.” Our economy relies heavily on transportation — delivery of goods and services and people getting to and from jobs.
Oil, along with coal and natural gas, is also used to generate electricity and heat our homes. Many of the consumer goods we use have a base in petroleum.
In recent years, due mainly to the slowdown in the nation’s economy, the demand for oil has slowed in the U.S. It is still growing in much of the rest of the world, particularly China.
But rather than simply returning to oil as the main source of fuel, there needs to be a plan to move the U.S. economy forward while also reducing the use of oil. We’re taking baby steps today to find alternative sources of fuel. It’s time to think giant leaps forward.
