Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
ASCERTAINMENT!
ON the ACT and ART of "FREELY REVEALING"
http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/evhippel-voluntaryinfospillover.pdf
Thursday, October 16, 2008
"United We Stand"
Building a Sustainable Economy Conference and Trade Show
We are proud to announce our sponsorship of Project Green America's
"United We Stand" exposition and look forward to working to build our
demonstration unit to be on display at this event on August 18th and
19th 2009.
The leaders at PGA are breaking new ground in the Green movement in
this country and are creating a new epicenter for Green companies to
meet at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on the Potomac
River, just south of Washington D.C.
United We Stand is a call to action for our nation's leading
innovators and socially responsible businesses and organizations. The
companies represented in this event are the backbone of a sustainable
future for America and as in the past, the best of the best will come
together to network, plan, and lead our nation to prosperity and
economic security once more.
Please visit the Project Green America website to learn more, and mark
your calendars for this historic event. Also, look for the
highlights on the Green Earth Expo from last may and watch some of the
videos and interviews!
http://projectgreenamerica.com/index.html
Please forward this email to everyone you know who has an abiding
interest in the creation of a green economy and the creations of
thousands and thousands of new green collar jobs.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
What Works: Canton company uses secret process to recycle oil Posted By:  1 day ago CANTON -- It's a recipe as guarded as Coca-Cola, and in the fight for clean energy, its product is sweet in a totally different way. Canton now boats the country's first plant to recycle transformer oil. Hydrodec takes the dirty oil and is able to clean 99 percent of the liquid to be reused over and over again. The dirty oil is usually destroyed while new transformer oil is made from crude purchased overseas. "We're taking used transformer oil that's historically been burned as fuel when it no longer meets industry specifications, and we're taking that oil and we're recycling that through our refinery process and putting it back into service," said John Cowan, Hydrodec's North American President. The secret formula of cleaning the oil for reuse was developed in New Zealand, Cowan said, and it's closely guarded. The Canton plant, located next to a rail line to allow for the delivery of bulk shipments of dirty oil, can process about 25,000 gallons of dirty oil into clean Superfine Transformer Oil each day. The plant has delivered 35 green jobs to Canton with a promise of up to 25 more as the company expands. The larger impact may be in using the process to clean other oils that many consumers often use and discard. "It works with hydraulic oils," Cowan said. "It certainly could work with motor oils and other kinds of specialty oils that are not burned in some type of process." The company's Tuesday open house included a unique ribbon cutting of an oil tanker busting through a banner. Want to submit an idea for What Works? CLICK HERE © 2008 WKYC-TV |
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October 10, 2008
Green Collar Job Training Program Focuses on At-risk Youth
by Audra Clark, News Intern
New Hampshire, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
The city of Santa Fe has found that two of its problems, a high percentage of high school drop outs and a lack of green collar workers, have the same solution -- a green collar job training program that recruits from a pool of at risk youths.
The Green Collar Job Training Program's aim was to develop a community response to the rising drop-out rate and the difficulty many local business face finding qualified local employees. The program consists of on-the-job training, academic skill building and job counseling.
The first trainees in the program, which was unveiled on September 24th by the program partners who include the City of Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Alliance, and ¡YouthWorks!, were a group of six local youths.
Trainees work four full days each week and earn the local living wage of US $9.50 an hour. Participating businesses contribute the first US $6.50 per hour while the remaining US $3.00 per hour is covered by the program. 
If the trainees choose to pursue a career in their given trade they have the potential to make significantly more. According Cedar Mountain Solar Partner and General Manager Boaz Soifer, installers can make up to US $20 an hour. Wages only increase from there with further certification or a journeyman's license.
Each Friday the trainees attend a class at the Santa Fe Community College for credit. The class was developed by ¡YouthWorks! and Earth Care International and is centered on concepts of sustainability but also focuses on college readiness, career exploration, basic science, math and writing skills.
Three local businesses participated in the pilot phase of the program, Cedar Mountain Solar Systems, a solar plumbing and heating contractor, Shanahan and Associates, a green contractor, and Los Amigos Educational Resource Center, which provides weatherization and energy efficiency services to disadvantaged communities.
The program came about through a series of round-table discussions between the Santa Fe Alliance, the Santa Fe Public Schools, the Living Wage Network, the City of Santa Fe Economic Development Division, the Santa Fe Community College, Earth Care International and local business leaders.
According to ¡YouthWorks! Education Coordinator Tobe Bott-Lyons, their pilot, which involved six youths and three businesses was funded by the Santa Fe Economic Development Division. They where given US $29,000, which was able to fund everything from supplementing the trainees income to covering the staff that ¡YouthWorks! dedicated to the program. The program has been invited by the city to apply for a grant for Innovation in Economic Development. The proposal is for US $160,000 and Bott-Lyons says that with that money "we would be on our feet and ready to go."
According to Cedar Mountain Solar Partner's Soifer, the benefit of his company's participation in the program was that it helped offset employee training costs and that the company was able to hire one of the trainees. Because Santa Fe's has a high drop-out rate, Soifer is pleased that the program "helps those who have dropped out find supportive and economic ways to stay in the community."
The Santa Fe Alliance, a business membership organization, had the role in the partnership of promoting the program, recruiting and training employers on mentorship skills, tax benefits and various other issues relating to participating in the program.
Soifer, who is also on the board of the Santa Fe Alliance, said that the main reason the Alliance participated in the program was that "green jobs are the kind of jobs that can't be outsourced."
According to Green For All Field Director Jeremy Hays, Green Collar Job Training programs for the underprivileged have the potential to help solve the two major crises facing the country today, the energy crisis and the finical crisis. At the same time, these types of training programs have the potential to lift people out of poverty by giving them a leg up in the expanding green economy. Finally programs like these have an environmental benefit that can't be ignored, which Hays summarized neatly saying that "they insure that the people who most need the work do the work that most needs to be done."
Youthworks group photo. Credit: Maria Dominguez, YouthWorks
Beyond New Mexico
Santa Fe does not stand alone. It joins other cities that also host green collar job training programs such as the Green Collar Jobs Campaign in Oakland, California, Blacks in Green (BIG) in Chicago, Illinois, and Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (B.E.S.T.) in New York, New York.
Bott-Lyons identified five key elements present in his program that would be necessary to replicate the program in other cities. First there needs to be an organization like ¡YouthWorks! that has a strong connection with at risk or "disconnected" youth. Also necessary is an employment preparation program that helps these youths attain their GED and trains to do things like "how to show up on time" and how to "deal with their manager."
Second, an organization needs to be involved like the Santa Fe Business Alliance that is interested in supporting the local green economy. "Businesses are in this to help their business but also to help the community," said Bott-Lyons. Recruitment for local businesses is a problem so they are motivated to see this program succeed. Their ability to advocate the program and recruit more businesses is essential because their advocacy to other businesses is be more effective that that of another source.
The third key element to replicating the program, according to Bott-Lyons, is to have an organization like Earth Care International involved that is dedicated to sustainability education. Though Earth Care International's focus is not at risk youth or technical training their experience was essential in developing the class that the trainees take at the local community college.
The fourth element is community college with an emerging renewable energy program that is interested in recruiting from at risk youths. The class in this case is centered around concepts of sustainability and within that context focuses on college readiness, career exploration, basic science, math and writing skills.
Program trainee James Monpoya has been training with Cedar Mountain Solar and says that he is learning a lot about sustainability and how green collar is coming into the community. He is also learning the basics of how to start up a small business.
Finally, the final piece of the puzzle is leadership in and support from the government. The city of Santa Fe has targeted green building and renewable energy growth in response to a state wide initiative. According to Cedar Mountain Solar Partner and General Manager Boaz Soifer, the governor has declared that he "wants to make New Mexico the Saudi Arabia of Renewables."
"Its been good for me, I've learned a lot," said Monpoya. "I like the job and the people I work with."
For more information about the program or the trainees, visit the ¡YouthWorks! Website.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=53800
Copyright © 1999-2008 RenewableEnergyWorld.com
All rights reserved.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
TheIndyChannel.com
Related To Story |
450 'Green' Jobs Coming To Central Indiana
Wind Turbine Gear Company Moving Headquarters From Chicago To Indiana
POSTED: 10:48 pm EDT October 8, 2008
UPDATED: 11:01 pm EDT October 8, 2008
DELAWARE COUNTY, Ind. -- An Italian corporation with a focus on wind power will bring more than 450 green jobs to Delaware County, state officials announced on Wednesday.Brevini unveiled plans to move their North American headquarters and design center from Chicago to a 60,000-square-foot building just east of Interstate 69 near Muncie and Yorktown, 6News' Jennifer Carmack reported.The company also plans to build a 150,000-square-foot manufacturing facility near the same site."This is just the beginning of the trickle down effect of Brevini relocating here. This is a new day," Muncie Mayor Sharon McShurley said at Wednesday's announcement.Brevini produces wind turbine planetary gear boxes used in wind farms across the country. The company's move to Indiana will bring 455 high-tech green energy jobs to the Muncie-area plant with an average pay of $46,000 a year, officials said."This is exactly what we seek to do, to be leaders in the businesses of tomorrow," Gov. Mitch Daniels said. "That this company, for its very first plant factory in North America, picked Indiana, then Delaware County and Muncie is an enormous victory for our state literally against a world of competition."Brevini new facility is scheduled to be built in 2010. The company will start hiring in 2009.
Copyright 2008 by TheIndyChannel.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
India's Tata unit to develop green technology in Qatar
by James Exelby on Wednesday, 08 October 2008
TECHNOLOGY CENTRE: Doha (pictured) is positioning itself as a R&D hub. (Getty Images)
TCE Consulting Engineers, a subsidiary of Indian engineering conglomerate Tata Group, will invest $12 million over the next five years at Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) to develop engineering solutions for the environment industry, the company said on Tuesday.
The centre will initially focus on software to design "green" buildings, create a blueprint for a solar-thermal power station and come up with practical applications for new nanotechnologies, the company said in a statement.
"Buildings account for 40 percent of energy consumption worldwide, so with the right technology we can make a real difference in this area," A. P. Mull, TCE Consulting Engineers said.
"Meanwhile most leading universities around the world are developing nano-particles, which have the potential to bring immense benefit to society. We want to take the experimental work to the field in close cooperation with Qatar researchers and business"
The company will open at QSTP's new research and development facilities in late 2008, and will eventually employ around 14 staff, half of whom will be researchers, it said.
Dr. Tidu Maini, QSTP's executive chairman, said "Tata has some very exciting expertise in energy and the environment, two of QSTP's strategic focus areas. We are proud to be partnering with them to bring these innovations to life and further grow Qatar's knowledge-based economy."
U.P. biofuel plant lands $50M in state, fed aid
Gary Heinlein and David Shepardson / The Detroit News
LANSING -- Cellulosic ethanol start-up Mascoma Corp. won $50 million in federal and state funding Tuesday for a new Michigan biofuel plant, after ending plans to build in Tennessee.
Mascoma Corp. said it had permission to shift $26 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding that had been announced for a plant in Tennessee to a plant to be built in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Michigan matched that award with a $23.5 million grant. The grants will speed the building and production of the factory, Mascoma said.
"This is the next generation of ethanol, using wood wastes from our sustainable forests," Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday. "It's really a home run for Michigan."
Mascoma's factory will make wood-cellulose ethanol, a renewable alternative to corn-based ethanol. The plant is to be built on state land near Kinross, south of Sault Ste. Marie in the eastern Upper Peninsula. The facility is expected to cost $250 million and eventually produce up to 40 million gallons of biofuel annually.
The Massachusetts-based start-up had announced plans to build plants in both Michigan and Tennessee. It said in April that it had received the $26 million federal grant to construct a facility in Monroe County, Tenn. Tennessee and Mascoma officials decided to drop the project after they disagreed over its size.
Mascoma had announced in July 2007 that it would build a plant in Michigan, in part due to the Wolverine State's abundance of forested land. The plant will use harvested mixed hardwood chips and other nonfood biomass materials to produce cellulosic ethanol.
General Motors Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp., both investors in Mascoma, are providing money and technical support for the Michigan project.
Granholm and Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO James Epolito said the project will employ about 150 construction workers followed by 40 to 50 full-time plant workers. The agency estimates it will create 700 Upper Peninsula jobs, when spin-off employment in related businesses is included.
Mascoma CEO Bruce Jamerson said the company would like to start building in about a year and would take another 1 1/2 years to complete the first phase.
You can reach David Shepardson at (202) 662 -- 8735.
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