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…)

BEIJING (Reuters) – China said on Sunday it will spell out greenhouse gas emissions goals and monitoring rules for regions and sectors in its next five-year plan, with monitoring to show it is serious about curbing emissions.

The Chinese government said in November it would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activity, emitted to make each unit of national income by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

That goal would let China’s greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, but more slowly than its rapid economic growth.

The policy was a cornerstone of Beijing’s position at the Copenhagen summit on climate change late last year when governments tried with limited success to agree on a new global treaty on fighting global warming.

The United States and other powers said China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from industry and other human activities, should have offered to do more to bring its domestic “carbon intensity” goal into an international pact that would reassure other governments.

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The U.S. government has identified 4,100 contaminated industrial sites, covering more than 5 million acres, suitable for building wind, solar, and geothermal power installations.

With concern about renewable energy projects being built on pristine lands, the construction of wind and solar arrays on idle industrial “brownfields” could be an ideal solution, according to federal officials.

The Daily Climate reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Renewable Energy Lab will begin conducting detailed studies of some sites this month and will hold five workshops with state and local leaders, renewable energy developers, and conservation groups to discuss constructing alternative energy installations on brownfields.
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Global emissions of carbon dioxide will drop 3 percent in 2009, including a 5.9 percent decrease in the United States, as a result of the economic recession, according to energy forecasts.

A decrease in industrial activity accounts for three-quarters of the global emissions decline, the International Energy Agency reported at United Nations climate talks in Bangkok. The rest of the decline is the result of nations switching to renewable energy sources and nuclear power.

In the U.S., coal demand will likely drop 9 percent this year as electricity demand slips and more states switch to natural gas in the face of stiffer government oversight of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Economic recovery would likely reverse the trend, and the agency predicts a 1.1 percent increase in CO2 emissions in 2010.

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Courtesy GSEA

“Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind”

You probably know the Ray Charles song. The Solar Energy Industries Association is singing it now. The trade group says Georgia sun is a major, untapped resource. Some of the best rays in the country, even the world, shine down on the state.

Georgia has another distinction, as a primary user and generator of coal-fired electricity in the United States, in part due to the energy-intensive wood and paper products industries centered there, the Energy Information Administration says.

But, done right, rooftop solar alone could generate more than a quarter of the power needs for Georgia, or more than nuclear does today, according to SEIA, the U.S. trade association for solar energy and related businesses.

The expansion of more than two dozen existing solar companies in Georgia could create hundreds of new jobs, too, says Association CEO Rhone Resch.

Georgia has its own Solar Energy Association, with more than 140 members.

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