CoolerPlanet Solar Tools and Resources
I stumbled upon a cool website called CoolerPlanet that contains a wide array of resources to help save you time and money, while still lowering your environmental impact. They have developed a large network on green professionals throughout America to help lower your energy bills. By putting in your location and current needs, CoolerPlanet can help match you up with the appropriate business to meet your needs. They also have several tools to help determine if solar energy is appropriate for your situation. The best thing about this site is that it is all provided free of charge and no signing up.
Solar Energy Cost Tool
This is the main feature of this site and allows you to determine the total cost of a solar energy system. They also provide the various incentives that are available to lower the cost, the “break even” point and even allow you to request a quote from a solar energy expert in your area. I really like this tool because it gives you the “break even” number of years for buying a solar energy system. It’s sometimes tough to determine if a solar energy system is appropriate for your house or business location, especially in areas where it may not seem sunny. This tool will show you can fund your solar energy system off of energy bill savings with a reasonable amount of time.
Power Rating Tool
CoolerPlanet’s power rating tool is another cool feature of this site. It shows their own rating system of how cost effective it is to obtain a solar system in each state. All available tax incentives and the average cost of a system in a particular state are used to make the calculation. What’s cool is that it allows you to browse a map highlighted with various colors showing each states solar energy cost rating. It gives you a good idea of how cost effective solar energy is for your state as well as those surrounding.
Other Resources
There are more resources and tools available on this site including: a blog, Solar Energy Q&A, Solar Energy news and even a Solar Install Map. CoolerPlanet did a great job in making it a one stop place to researching and purchasing a solar energy system.
Solar Panels Could Pose Dangers to the Environment
Solar Energy is one of the top emerging renewable energy sources that could relieve us of our dependency on dirty energy sources like coal and dangerous energy sources like nuclear. Even with it’s many positives, solar energy has a major drawback that could cause some harm to our environment. Solar energy itself is not dangerous nor is the process of solar panels converting the sun’s light into energy. The biggest problem is in the production and disposal of the solar panels.
As reported Solar panels are currently made with various toxic chemicals including silicon. It is a major component in their construction and is a main reason that both must be carefully manufactured and recycled. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition recently released a report to encourage the industry to pursue more sustainable materials to build their products to ensure that solar energy is truly as green as advertised. Also, they would like the government to enact policies to prevent a similar situation currently occurring with the electronic industry. If preparations are not properly taken then there can be dire consequences. There have been many deaths and communities destroyed due to the toxic byproducts of using silicon. There are huge amounts of toxic materials that lay in our landfills because of the lack of planning on their parts. The goal of this report is to prevent a situation like from happening with the solar panel industry.
A big problem is that the solar industry has started off on a similar track to that of electronics. There was a report that a small town in China was already polluted with a silicon byproduct. Their lands are filled with waste and left unusable. There are also health risks to the people who have not already been directly affected by the toxins. This cannot continue to keep happening if we want to continue to praise solar energy as being green and a renewable energy source. After reading this article, it makes it really hard to continue to support solar energy, but there are still many reasons to do so. As I said earlier, solar energy itself is renewable, just the products used to making the panels. It’s great to see that the coalition is putting pressure on the solar industry to start researching safe material to be used in their manufacturing process. These changes need to be done now before further damage is done.
There is at least some companies that realize the real dangers associated with the waste that could accumulate from their panel production. First Solar is giving their customer’s a lifetime guarantee that they will recycle the panels they sell. This process ensures that their panels do not end up in a landfill and are properly disposed of. Don’t get me wrong, Solar energy’s benefits far outweigh this one negative. I would choose solar energy in a heartbeat over horrible energy sources like coal and nuclear. We just need to make sure that companies are taking responsibility for their products and have recycling programs like First Solar has to make sure these new renewable sources of energy are as green as everybody suggests.
Super-Yachts Go Green With Wind and Solar Energy
For all those multi-millionaires out there that want to enjoy the seas comfortably while going green, there is a new boat that could fit the bill. The Solar Sailor company based out of Sydney, Australia is creating a series of super-yachts that will run off of solar and wind energy. The idea is to create a solar sail that can multi-task as a sail and it’s energy source. A huge problem with many of the current yachts sailing on the seas is that they guzzle tons of gas and emits tons of pounds of CO2. The reason they require so much energy is that they not only need to run these huge boats, but they also have fancy equipment like Jacuzzis and movie theaters that require tons of energy to operate. One thing that shocked me was to see that they huge yachts can consume as much 1 liter of fuel per second. That’s right not minute but second.
The technology works through a computer system that will control the solar sail. The sail can then be electronically mounted based off of the sun’s position or the direction of the wind. Not only would the vessels be getting 5% of its energy from the solar panels mounted on the sails, but they would also be getting approximately 20-40% of the total energy needs from wind. This could save the owners tons of money to operate their yachts as well as eliminate tons of emissions.
The thing that frustrates me the most about this is: why do you need such a large and elaborate boat? Is it really necessary to have a yacht of such size that requires so much fuel to run? Just because the ultra wealthy that own super-yachts have the money to buy these, why not allocate you money elsewhere. Even after adding these great renewable energy modifications to these boats, they still are going to be burning tons of fuel. They are just burning less that they previously were. This is how our environment has taken such a huge hit. The need to have massive machines and boats that require tons of energy to operate. Even if they were to convert these massive boats to run completely on renewable energy, it still doesn’t make them green or eco-friendly. Tons of materials are needed to build these devices just to make a few people more comfortable when they are sailing. I’m all for supporting renewable energy, but we as a society also need to start conserving more. What are you thoughts.
Solar Energy Tax Credit Sneaks into Bailout Bill
The big story over the last few weeks has been the economy and how the billion dollar bailout package would help lift our struggling stock market. Whether you agree completely over this bailout package, one good thing that came out of it was an extension to the renewable energy tax credits that have been neglected by Congress over the past year. Many believe that this tax credit is key to continued growth of wind, solar and new alternative energy sources. It allows emerging technologies such as wind energy to become a more financial viable option.
As mentioned in a previous article, Arizona would have had the most to lose if this tax credit were not passed. The Solana Generating Station is a proposed solar power plant by a Spanish company called Abengoa Solar. The plant was projected to be built by 2011 and could provide a large portion of Arizona’s energy. The company said that the only way for the project to be economical for them would be for the tax credits. Arizona was worried earlier in the Summer that they could lose this project to another country where more support could be provided for alternative energy sources.
The bailout bill contains an 8 year extension on the 30% solar tax credits that are already in place. With an estimated 60,000 employees working in the solar energy industry, this extension will provide a huge boost. The bill also provides a 1 year extension on the tax credits for smaller sources of energy such as wind, geothermal, hydro-power and many others. The passing of this bill could make an enormous impact on the renewable energy industry and continue to move our country in the right direction.
This Week in News: August 14th
Government
The New Zealand government announced a proposed National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation yesterday. This proposal would help achieve the government’s goal of 90% of the country’s total energy usage from renewable energy sources. Environment Minister Trevor Mallard said about the policy:
We’ve always said that our 90 percent renewable target does not require damming every river and putting wind turbines on every ridge line
Currently, the Resource Management Act (RMA) does not take into account the environmental damages caused by setting up the infrastructure for renewable energy sources. This plan will force local officials to take these types of long-term damages into account before setting up any alternative energy sources. Eliminating forest or hurting local animals should not be compromised for get clean energy. What I like most about the goals of the New Zealand government is that they are staying away from any sources that are not renewable or dangerous like nuclear power.
Green Building
In local news, the Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board announced that the Ecology department must rewrite storm water control policies. The regulations will enforce that new buildings must use low-impact development or LID techniques. Environmentalist are praising these regulations because they are one of the few places in the country to enforce storm water runoff policies. The idea behind LID is it filters much of the pollution out of rainwater runoff through the soil.
Solar Energy
The state of Gujarat in western India announced that is is planning on building one of the world’s largest solar power arrays. The project is projected to produce a total of 5 GW of solar energy that is expected to cost around $5 billion. A U.S. company Clinton Foundation has been in talks to provide the major pieces to produce this large project. State officials are quotes as to saying that this could greatly reduce the cost of energy.
This Week in News: August 7th
Olympics
The United Nations Environment Programme or UNEP has been working with China for the last several years to make the Olympic games more environmentally friendly. China has spent around $17 billion in order to make Beijing a much more environmentally friendly place. Many of the venues used for the Olympics will get some of their energy from renewable sources. Not all of the changes just for the Olympic games, but to improve the overall city for the long run. These changes include enhancing Beijing’s public transportation system, building a wall of solar panels and restricting harsher standards on emissions.
Hydrogen
MIT scientist have made a breakthrough discovery that would allow hydrogen to be separated from water simply by using solar power. The process only requires pressure and can be done at room temperature. A major concern to many is that the currently the process of separating hydrogen and oxygen from water relies on fossil fuels. This eliminates any of the environmental benefits gained by using hydrogen in fuel-cells. This new discovery therefore allow for hydrogen to be produced cheaply and remove any dependency on fossil fuel. I am excited by this finding as it really makes hydrogen a viable renewable resource.
Geothermal
TRUenergy and Petratherm have joined forces in Southern Australia to enter into the geothermal energy market. Under the venture, TRUenergy would acquire 30% of Petratherm’s Paralana project. The Paralana project is located in Flinders Ranges of South Australia and aims to be provide Australia with geothermal electricity by 2011. The hope is that the Paralana project can product up to 260 megawatts of electricity from geothermal energy by 2020.
Wise New Financial Investments in Alternative Energy ETFs
With all the talk about moving our country to alternative forms of energy, it made me wonder if there were ways I could help move this process along a little faster. I am currently invested in a variety of mutual funds, but many of them only invest extremely small shares in companies that are pushing for alternative sources of energy. One big company I found in many of them was General Electric. This is just one company though.
By pure luck, I saw a news article talking of a new ETF by Financial Trust called Global Wind Energy Index Fund (FAN) by First Trust Financial. This fund has only been out for a month now, it is one of the first of its kind. The Wind Energy ETF invests in companies that are involved in the process of making wind turbines. This fund invest in some of the major players of the Wind Turbine market right now including Vestas Wind Systems, Hansen Transmissions and even GE.
Wind energy is not the only alternative energy sector that has an ETF associated with it. Solar Energy does as well with the Market Vectors Solar ETF (KWT) that is really similar to FAN, but invests in major companies involved with producing solar panels.
Before I proceed any further, I want to make sure all the financial terms are not confusing everybody, so I will go into what an ETF is. Wikipedia is not always the most reliable source, but their entry on ETFs really sums up what one is:
ETFs offer public investors an undivided interest in a pool of securities and other assets and thus are similar in many ways to traditional mutual funds, except that shares in an ETF can be bought and sold throughout the day like stocks on a securities exchange through a broker-dealer.
The basic idea is that an ETF is a mutual fund in which you can publicly trade like stocks, but don’t have many of the expense fees that mutual funds have.
What I really like about these new alternative energy ETFs is that I feel like I am making a difference. Since many of the companies in this sector are up-and-coming, investing in them can really help with the push to begin using alternative energy sources. With just a small amount of money, you can invest in many of the top companies of the alternate energy sector. This also reduces some of the risks involved with investing in smaller companies like these.
Just a word of caution. Be very careful and make sure you thoroughly research these and other investments before committing any money to them. They are very specific sectors and could lose money just as with any investment.
When I scrape a little extra money together, I will try investing in FAN and see how it turns out. I found a great article with further green mutual funds and ETFs. Good luck investing and hopefully you will be able to incorporate green stocks in your portfolio.
