Sunny Milpitas, California is the newly announced home of SunPower’s first domestic manufacturing operations. Yep, you heard right. More green manufacturing jobs right here in the U.S.A. (In November, Chinese solar powerhouse Suntech announced that its first U.S. manufacturing facility would be located near Phoenix, Arizona).

SunPower’s  75-megawatt production line is expected to employ 100 by the end of the year, and spread the wealth around even more by sourcing equipment and materials from a host of other states throughout the United States. At the Vote Solar Initiative, we like to remind folks that manufacturing is only a fraction of solar’s overall job creation opportunity. In fact, about 75 percent of solar employment is related to system installation, jobs that are inherently local in the first place. Nevertheless, manufacturing is near and dear to most Americans, and this new production facility is tangible proof that the green economy has a real role to play in bringing those jobs back home — with the right policies, that is.

As was the case with Suntech’s Arizona selection, SunPower’s decision to locate manufacturing in California is a testament to the state’s market-building solar policies. And so it is appropriate that stalwart renewable energy supporter, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, joined in making the announcement. During the event, Schwarzenegger highlighted a few initiatives that have been so instrumental to the state’s new energy economy that we think they bear repeating: (more…)

The United States Department of Agriculture was tasked with tracking Farmers Markets beginning in 1994. The directory was updated every two years through 2008. In 2009, the process changed to a yearly rite. Here’s the breakdown:

• Number of Farmers Markets in 1994 – 1,755
• Number of Farmers Markets in 1996 – 2,410
• Number of Farmers Markets in 1998 – 2,746
• Number of Farmers Markets in 2000 – 2,863
• Number of Farmers Markets in 2002 – 3,137
• Number of Farmers Markets in 2004 – 3,706
• Number of Farmers Markets in 2006 – 4,385
• Number of Farmers Markets in 2008 – 4,685
• Number of Farmers Markets in 2009 – 5,274

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Our high-tech products increasingly make use of rare metals, and mining those resources can have devastating environmental consequences. But if we block projects like the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska, are we simply forcing mining activity to other parts of the world where protections may be far weaker?

Every time someone pushes the on-button on an electronic device, there is an expectation that the unit will power up quickly and display images in vibrant color. There is the further expectation, especially when using electronic devices for communications such as email access, web downloading, and texting that the response time will be immediate. We live in an age of technological arms races in which manufacturers gain market edge by creating products that are faster, have more applications, have a broader network reach, and generally do more.

The processing capacity of digital electronic devices doubles about every two years (Moore’s Law), and this capacity increase is enabled by an expanded use of elements. For example, computer chips made use of 11 major elements in the 1980s but now use about 60 (two-thirds of the periodic table!). And the electronics sector isn’t alone. Engine turbine blades for aircraft are made of alloys of a dozen or so metals; motors and batteries of green-technology hybrid vehicles depend on several of the rare earths; advances in medical imaging have come about by the unique band gaps of elements such as gadolinium. It seems that there are no limits to what the imagination can create except for the fact that many of the metals are globally rare and, given the nature of current technology, non-substitutable. (more…)

Hear Ye, O Haters of Styrofoam: United Parcel Service now gives businesses a little credit for shunning the dreaded packing peanut. Shippers who demonstrate that they regularly send packages in a thoughtful way — subbing shredded paper for styrofoam, using snug boxes, and padding items so they don’t arrive damaged — can get a special label affixed to the box.

Us vs. the Volcano: Boxes and people lurched back into the troposphere this week as the Eyjafjoell volcano stopped spewing and gave planes the chance to fly again from European airports. Eyjafjoell issued 150,000 to 30,000 tons of CO2 per day — as much as a small European country — but its carbon footprint was offset by all those canceled flights. Anxious eyes remained on the skies for another eruption, or perhaps an interruption of another kind. After all, the U.S. military fears massive oil shortages by 2015.

Solar on the Go: Seiko unveiled a series of wristwatches powered by photovoltaic panels built into the face. After getting a full suntan the watch will keep on ticking for six months, at a price of $215 to $283. This summer, Samsonite will roll out a line of luggage embedded with solar panels that transmit enough juice to power mobile devices.

This Time We Mean It: Energy Star, the international standard for energy-efficient appliances, has been stung suckered of late by manufacturers that lied about their specs. As of 2011, makers of fridges, washers and water heaters will need to submit to independent testing in order to win the coveted EnergyStar label. (more…)

Major business groups representing the food industry, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, say they will not support long-awaited food safety legislation if it includes an amendment banning bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical found in thousands of everyday plastics.

The comprehensive bill, which easily passed the U.S House of Representatives with bipartisan support and is expected to come before the Senate in the next month, would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration more authority over food production and place more responsibility on manufacturers and farmers to reduce contamination in their products.

An amendment by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., would ban BPA, the primary component of hard and clear polycarbonate plastics — including water bottles, baby bottles, and the linings of canned foods.

“We will not support food safety legislation that bans or phases out BPA from any food and beverage container,” said Scott Faber, vice president for federal affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association. (more…)

Biomass Advisors announces the release of a Camelina Feedstock Report, an abbreviated version of the consulting firm’s Camelina Aviation Biofuels report released in March (see One Billion Gallons in Camelina Biofuel by 2025).

Meanwhile, UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced yesterday that Honeywell Green Jet Fuel powered a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet flight as part of the Navy’s efforts to certify the use of alternative fuels in military aircraft.

The F/A-18 Super Hornet, dubbed the Green Hornet by the Navy, was fueled with a 50/50 mixture of Green Jet Fuel made from camelina oil and petroleum-derived military jet fuel. The flight is one of a series of biofuel test flights that will be conducted by the Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet test program and marks the first flight of a supersonic jet with afterburners flying on a biofuels blend. (more…)

The first regional Wind Energy Conference, sponsored by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, took place in Detroit April 20 and 21. Bringing together for the first time under one roof, the major players from government, utilities, universities, and private enterprise everyone had a chance to focus on what the experts had to say about the state of the art in wind energy production and the role it will play in the transformation of Michigan’s economy.

A highlight of the intensive two-day Michigan Wind Energy summit, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm stated in a keynote speech that the goal of her efforts was to make Michigan the “Saudi Arabia of wind energy.”

In her enthusiastic ‘let’s get serious’ attitude about making change, Gov. Granholm reiterated that no one is hungrier for change and the jobs that ‘going green’ will create than Michigan. (more…)

The New Jersey cities of Trenton, Jersey City, Newark, and Camden are set to receive a total of $2.3 million dollars from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help them assess and clean up contaminated and abandoned sites. The funding will be channeled through the EPA’s Brownfields Program. The clean up projects will help revitalize commercial and industrial properties by removing the toxic pollution that has hindered their redevelopment.

A brownfield site, or brownfield as it is commonly called, is a piece of land that was formerly used for industrial or commercial purposes, but is now abandoned or underused. Brownfield sites are perceived to be contaminated with low concentrations of hazardous waste, but have the potential to contain high concentrations of such waste. The pollutants are usually petroleum products often leaked from underground storage tanks or buried drums, but may include a number of toxic chemicals and organic compounds.

The Brownfields Program has been in existence since the EPA designated its first brownfield site in 1993 in Cuyahoga County in Ohio. Brownfields hold a special status because even though they are contaminated, they are not quite so bad to be included on the EPA’s National Priorities List, otherwise known as Superfund. The Brownfields Program does have a number of benefits including the following: (more…)

Is efficiency worth the bother if you save only $5 to $10 per month on your energy bill? Many homeowners think not. One dad told us his family would rather save money by just skipping a pizza order once a month. That sentiment is not unusual.

But it is hard to negate the economic value of efficiency if you spend $20 billion per year on energy, as does the U.S. military, our government’s largest energy user, responsible for nearly 80 percent of the government’s total energy consumption.

“Re-energizing America’s Defense,” a recent report by The Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate,  looks at how profoundly our energy mix affects the military.

The military has great motivation to make our energy supply more efficient and less oil-dependent. For every $10 per barrel increase in oil prices, the Defense Department’s energy bill increases more than $1.3 billion. That is a lot of pizza. (more…)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has selected $78.9 million in brownfields grants to communities in 40 states, four tribes, and one U.S. Territory.  This funding will be used for the assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment of brownfields properties, including abandoned gas stations, old textile mills, closed smelters, and other abandoned industrial and commercial properties.

The brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.  As of March 2010, EPA’s brownfields assistance has leveraged more than $14 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding.

In total, the EPA is selecting 304 grants through the Brownfields Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup Grants programs: (more…)