“I really think it’s important that the best and brightest in the colleges today should take a look at these problems.  If we can resolve the energy problem then clean water isn’t far behind. And if you’ve got  inexpensive renewable energy worldwide, and if you have clean water, once you take those major problems away for the planet there’s a lot less to fight about.”  – Jack Baron, CEO of Sweetwater

KissMyCountry continues our ‘CEOs Saving the Planet’ series with Jack Baron, CEO of Sweetwater , a biofuels company in Rochester, New York that’s working on some exciting solutions, including a replacement for jet fuel. Jack, best known for co-founding the telecommunications firm PAETEC, took the helm at Sweetwater to make a difference in renewable energy today. Jack talks about the importance of renewable fuels for saving our planet, and the most interesting green technologies that people are working on today, as well as the places he loves in Rochester.  Enjoy!

KissMyCountry: Jack, Sweetwater is an exciting company that brings new ideas to biofuel production. You’ve got great technology. In layman’s terms, can you tell us a little bit about Sweetwater and your breakthrough technology?  Why are you excited, and what would you like us to know about Sweetwater?

(more…)

Solar Energy (both photovoltaic and solar hot water, aka solar thermal) are great resources to have at your disposal. In the case of photovoltaic, you can substitute the power from your utility grid by harnessing the sun’s power and converting the sun’s rays into electricity. With rising electricity prices, photovoltaics (aka solar electric) is a great hedge against ever expanding utility bills. The photovoltaic industry is growing by leaps and bounds. You may want to get into the action. (more…)

In 2010, for the third consecutive year, new wind power installations in the European Union will have roughly the same amount of electricity-generating capacity as newly built natural gas power plants, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

About 10 gigawatts of new wind power capacity is expected to be added in 2010, which would boost total installed capacity to about 85 gigawatts, according to the trade organization.

Natural gas remains the EU’s leading source of generating electricity, producing about 119 gigawatts in 2007, according to industry data.

(more…)

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Tuesday pledged to do all he could to contain the BP Plc oil spill and help the Gulf Coast recover.

“We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused,” Obama said in a televised address.

Obama also said he was happy to take ideas from Democrats and Republicans on broad energy legislation but said the United States could not afford to avoid changes in its energy use.

The high-stakes address to the nation is seen as an attempt to restore public confidence in his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and drive forward his ambitious plans to cut U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.

BP’s efforts to curb the flow of oil into the sea suffered another setback when a fire aboard a ship collecting the gushing crude forced suspension of siphoning from the ruptured underwater well. But operations were restarted before Obama spoke. (more…)

The Green Energy Act is quickly positioning Ontario as a world leader in the global sustainability movement. Originally enacted in 2009, the Act continues to bolster the province’s local economy through domestic content provisions and a number of renewable energy growth initiatives among both major and minor players in the solar energy arena. These domestic content provisions require that companies seeking to develop large or micro solar projects within the province use a percentage of local goods and labour. (more…)

A group of powerful U.S. business leaders has called on the government to sharply increase funding of renewable energy research or risk falling far behind other nations in the race to replace fossil fuels with green technologies. The group, which includes Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, and venture capitalist John Doerr, said the government should triple spending on energy research and development to $16 billion a year and create a national energy board to oversee investment decisions in renewable energy research. (more…)

The US wind power industry is facing huge problems that have led analysts to forecast a 60% drop in installations this year. This will be the first year since 2004 that the industry will not grow. The main reason for this set back is that we have nearly run out of high wind areas with easy access to transmission. This combined with extremely low prices for natural gas have led the industry back to the drawing board. (more…)

Good news from the Buckeye State! The legislature passed important tax reform that drops the tax burden for solar farms from upwards of $100,000 per MW to a flat fee of $7,000 per MW. The bill (SB232) – which is expected to be signed by the Governor any day now – removes a major barrier to large-scale solar development in the state.

Existing Ohio tax law added these unreasonably high costs to the price of developing solar and other (more…)

No, says a new report from the Global Justice Ecology Project, the Global Forest Coalition and Biofuelwatch called “Wood-based Bioenergy: The Green Lie”.

Burning wood – even fast-growing, genetically engineered trees designed to be used for fuel – merely increases the dangers of climate change, especially among the poorest nations, where much of the tree-growing takes place.

Growers argue that the tree plantations are growing on “marginal” land, but there is no such thing as marginal land in a poor country like Borneo, for example, where such land is used for grazing livestock, gathering wild plants for food or medicine, or as housing space.

Even the argument itself is specious. Some of these monoculture plantations are encroaching on arable land, or invading old-growth forests, a process that ends up displacing indigenous forest people (more…)

When you put 75 solar installers, policy makers and advocates in a room and ask them to discuss policies and tactics for reducing the local cost component of solar energy, what do they say?

We tried it at the end of May at the American Solar Energy Society’s (ASES) annual conference SOLAR 2010, and here is what we learned.

Building Customer Demand
Reducing Cost of Customer Acquisition
(more…)