September 29th, 2009
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.
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Tags: energy efficiency, energy savings, Renewable Energy, wind
Posted in Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
September 29th, 2009
We are please to announce the recent publication of the OnGoingTransportation White Paper, titled Futurama II Mobilizing America’s Transportation Revolution. The White Paper was co-authored by David Muyres, formerly a Vice President at the Art Center College of Design and Executive at Johnson Controls Inc. and now with HuntGreen LLC, and Geoff Wardle, the Director of Advanced Mobility at the Art Center College of Design. OnGoingTransportation is a siren call for a bold new approach to the future of American transportation. The OnGoingTransportation initiative calls for the creation of a team of the best and brightest minds to develop a new long term vision that will serve as a blueprint for the next 50 years of transportation needs in the U.S. The vision will inspire well-designed, environmentally and economically sustainable options as part of a totally integrated national transportation system. The blueprint will inform sound, long-term policy and legislation, facilitate innovative technology and financing, and encourage entirely new business models, allowing American entrepreneurs to create jobs and lead the world in transportation solutions. To download the paper click here.
Tags: sustainable mobility, transport, transportation
Posted in Auto | No Comments »
August 16th, 2009
On June 18th Deutsche Bank launched a 70-foot billboard with a red carbon counter ticking upwards as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere increases (data supplied by MIT) and a message reading “Climate Change Affects Everyone”.
Climate-altering pollution — normally invisible and out of mind — will now be highly visible to hundreds of thousands of people in NY City near Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.
I made sure to go to the launch and luncheon since the project was managed by a friend and colleague on the Deutsche Climate Team. It was great to see the financial community discussing climate change and its implications for business in depth and with urgency.
Now I’d like to see banks all over the US and the world have the Carbon counter on their signs next to the date, time and temperature. And… I’d like a personal carbon counter app for my iphone. I just looked, and yes, they already exist!
Tags: carbon, carbon finance, Climate Change, new york city
Posted in Climate Change | No Comments »
August 16th, 2009
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: carbon, clean tech, Climate Change, Renewable Energy
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July 23rd, 2009
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.
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Tags: clean energy, electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, Norway, zero emission
Posted in Auto, Renewable Energy | 2 Comments »