Hunt Green LLC » Renewable Energy

Suzanne on CHIBAS Board of Directors in Haiti — They Are Ok

suzanne — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:43:44 +0000

Last year I joined the Board of Directors of CHIBAS, a non-profit research center on bio-energy and sustainable agriculture based in Haiti. I was enormously relieved to find out that the Executive Director and Research Director, Gael Pressior and his family and colleagues are all fine after the earthquake. We are working with colleagues at a variety of organizations, including LAC-CORE, to facilitate the rapid deployment of renewable energy technologies for lighting, heat, electricity, water purification, and other critical needs.

CHIBAS is working to develop and promote the use of multipurpose crops that could contribute to job creation while improving both the food and energy security in Haiti. CHIBAS has strong research capabilities and highly qualified personnel in both agronomy and genetics.

CHIBAS is set to become a Regional Biofuels Technical & Knowledge Center that will serve the biofuel sector by developing energy crop technologies and varieties, with an initial focus on jatropha and sweet sorghum. These technologies will be useful not only to Haiti but will be available for all of the Latin American and Caribbean countries. Moreover, CHIBAS will provide the biofuel agro-industry and other stakeholders the technologies and technical support necessary for the development and success of the biofuel agro-industry in the region.

New Windmill at Hunt Country Vineyards!

suzanne — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:52:27 +0000

Our new Windspire vertical axis wind turbine is up and spinning on the hill at Hunt Country Vineyards! I will be at the winery on October 9th for the dedication of the Windspire. We will also be introducing the newest winery addition, which features heavy insulation, in-floor heating capability, automated tank cooling, and energy efficient lighting, and has already resulted in a substantial drop in energy usage.
Our 30 foot tall Windspire produces 1.2 kW of power. Mariah Power manufactures Windspires in Michigan, in a refurbished auto parts plant employing former autoworkers using American materials. The turbine produces 110 volt 60 cycle current, which feeds directly into the residential grid. It has an automatic safety feature whereby it cannot produce power unless the grid is operating. As one of the first Windspire models in operation in New York State, it will be used to demonstrate not only its unique advanced design, but also that small wind turbines can be a graceful part of the farm landscape and can contribute to local self-reliance and regional sustainability.

If you are not familiar with vertical-axis turbines (VAT), they have several appealing attributes: they can produce energy in lighter and shifty air and at less cost than the more common horizontal axis propeller turbines, they are very quiet, and they are not hazardous to birds as the turning blades give the appearance of a solid object for birds to avoid.

Gigaton Throwdown

suzanne — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:39:18 +0000

Today the “Gigaton Throwdown” results were released publicly in Washington DC with a number of the Obama Administration’s clean tech and green gurus (namely John Holdren – director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Van Jones – Obama’s Green Jobs Advisor, Cathy Zoi – Assistant Secretary of Energy for EE and RE, and David Sandalow – Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy and International Affairs) and their staff in attendance. But with a name like “Gigaton Throwdown”, this is obviously not a Washington initiative. It was conceived of by a group of Venture Capitalists in Silicon Valley who wondered – beyond whether their investments would make the money – would they make a difference? So they enlisted the help of other investors, entrepreneurs, executives and leading academics, to analyze which clean technologies have the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 1 billion metric tons (a gigaton) per year by 2020.

Of the nine technologies they studied — Biofuels, Building efficiency, Concentrating solar power, Construction materials, Geothermal, Nuclear, Plug in Hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVS), Solar photovoltaics, and Wind – they found that seven are “ready to scale up aggressively today.” Wind is on track to produce a gigaton reduction in GHG emissions by 2020 at its current growth rate, but the other technologies would require a 3x expansion in investment, bringing clean energy investment up to the current level of investment in fossil fuels. They point out that many of these technologies have been widely deployed and proven, but rapid scaling will require stable policy support and long-term thinking on the part of the government.

They determined that these technologies would then be able to meet more than 60% of global energy demand and the scale-up would create more than 4.5 million jobs, a vibrant new sector in the U.S. economy, and a clean energy policy that ensures domestic security.

The full report and additional materials are at: http://www.gigatonthrowdown.org

Viking Road Rally — May 2009

suzanne — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:02:18 +0000

In 2007 I went on a month-long road rally across the US, Mexico, and most of Central America using waste grease and biodiesel. Pictures and descriptions from our visits to sustainable biodiesel producers along the way can be found here. One of my fellow travelers was Bjorn Kruse, the advanced vehicle specialist for the Norwegian environmental non-profit organization “Zero”. Bjornar decided to organize a shorter rally for high tech Zero Emission Vehicles in Norway. Ford Motor Company and the Hynor Group sponsored myself and race car driver Leilani Munter and provided us with a Hydrogen fuel cell Ford Focus, and on May 10th we were in Oslo and ready to go. Unfortunately the vehicle had been damaged in transport and we went to sleep thinking that we were out of the rally.

Twenty minutes before the start our car arrived and we were off. At one of the first stops we were greeted by a number of car fanatics with their classic vehicles and replicas like the one shown here of the first electric vehicle.

During down time we also checked out some of the other vehicles in the rally like the EV called the Buddy made by a Norwegian company, and this electric-pedal car produced in Germany.

The rally was designed to test both the drivers and the vehicles, but proving that these cleaner technologies can be as fun and high performing as conventional cars was a key goal.

Unfortunately the drive shaft that was broken in transport and only partially fixed, failed during the slalom course, taking us out of the competition.

Fortunately the mechanics were able to patch it up again enough so that we could “limp” to the finish line. The bright side was that on day three, because we were no longer competing, we were able to have Sabine Flanz, the head Research Engineer, for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology for Ford in Europe, ride with us which gave us a lot of time to discuss the ins and outs of fuel cell technology, H fuel cells versus EVs, etc. While the EVs could charge up anywhere they could plug in an extension cord, their range was quite limited and charging requires several hours, so the H fuel cell cars had a huge advantage with range and speed of re-fueling (about the same as refueling a conventional car). The downside is of course the need for specialized H production, distribution, and refueling infrastructure. In Norway the grid is 100% renewable, so the H was produced from green electricity.

Leilani Munter posing for press shots.

Suzanne, Leilani, and Sabine at the top of the steepest hill in Norway. The Monte Carlo Rally in the 1930’s went up this same road!