Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA recently hired The Alpha Group, Alpha Energy to install a 21kW solar power system to be commissioned on October 3.

“It is exciting to see educational institutions getting involved in renewable energy projects like this,” said Drew Zogby, President and COO of Alpha Technologies. “By showing their own commitment to going green, Whitman College is leading by example and encouraging their students to follow the same path. By providing Whitman with high quality system design, installation and innovative monitoring systems, Alpha Energy is demonstrating our own commitment to the best at what we do. This turnkey system is something Whitman and their students can be proud of.”

The 2,500 sq. ft. rooftop installation includes 120 photovoltaic panels, and is one of the largest solar arrays in Walla Walla County and in the Washington territories of Pacific Power and Light (PPL) company. The system will generate an estimated 25,000 kWhs annually, which constitutes about 20% of the Bratton Tennis Center’s power needs. A solar monitoring station will be located on the first floor of the Hall of Science allowing students and the general public to monitor the system’s output.

“The educational aspect of the project is a vital component,” said Bob Carson, Grace Farnsworth Phillips professor of geology and environmental studies. “And Whitman is ideally suited to educate members of the Whitman and Walla Walla communities about the importance of alternative energy solutions. This project shows students and community members that what needs to done, can be done. It’s a public acknowledgement that we can’t continue to get all of our power from fossil fuels, because we do have alternative energy solutions.”

The monitoring Web site for the system is currently online, and an official dedication of the solar panels will be held Saturday, Oct 3, at 3:30 p.m. in Kimball Theatre, Hunter Conservatory.

“Not long ago, there wasn’t much a landfill could do with methane, except burn it,” points out Brendan Schlauch in the September issue of Governing magazine. “That cuts down the pungent smell and makes nice with neighbors who are unfortunate enough to live near a landfill. Recently, however, localities have come to see methane not just as a stinky nuisance but also as a valuable commodity. Hundreds of landfills around the country have begun transforming methane into electricity and biofuels. The gas can be sent directly to buildings to run heating and cooling systems, can be purified into natural gas, and liquefied or compressed to power garbage trucks and city buses.”

The magazine offers the Development Authority of the North Country, which owns and operates a landfill in New York, as an example. DANC pipes the gas out of the landfill and sends it to a facility where it is processed into heating fuel and used to power an electric plant. Carbon credits offered by the California Action Reserve (CAR), an independent nonprofit that helps organizations both in and out of California to determine their carbon footprint, help foot the bill for the operating costs.

Schlauch states that methane’s relatively short life (nine to 15 years in the atmosphere as opposed to 50 to 200 years for CO2) makes scientists “optimistic that major reductions in methane emissions could lead to a slowing of short-term climate change.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program can’t help these gas-to-energy projects financially, but it will work with landfills to help them determine the economic feasibility of such projects and to find sources of financing. And CAR offers carbon credits that can be sold to other organizations.

Governing points out that “a growing number of private companies are working with municipal landfills to tap these offsets as revenue source. For example, an outfit called Blue Source will pay the upfront costs of a municipal landfill-gas-to-energy project, in exchange for a piece of the profit from offsets trading.”

Landfills may one day power entire cities if methane can be effectively harnessed.

San Francisco currently recycles about 72 percent of its waste, the best percentage in the country. Composting food waste could up that figure to 90 percent, according to some estimates. Additionally, food scraps, plant waste and other organic materials decompose in landfills, creating methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than CO2. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an organization dedicated to environmentally friendly development, the global warming impact of methane emissions in the short term is 72 times greater than the impact of CO2. (See Methane to Energy post above)

In a June 2008 report, Stop Trashing the Climate, the Institute noted that reducing materials going to landfills and incinerators could be equivalent to shuttering 21 percent of the country’s 417 coal-fired energy plants.

“San Francisco has the best recycling and composting programs in the nation,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said. “We can build on our success.”

The city sends its food scraps and other compostable material each day to the Jepson-Prairie composting facility in Vacaville, Calif. Owned by Recology, the facility uses the scraps to create soil amendments that it sells to vineyards, retail soil bagging operations, landscapers and the erosion control industry,

The Jepson-Prairie composting facility turns San Francisco's food waste into soil amendments.

The village has made becoming the country’s first zero carbon emissions community its goal, according to a piece by Sarah Mukherjee, environment correspondent for BBC News. It all started when Garry Charnock, a local resident, attended a literary festival where he heard the government’s former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, talking about the need for action on climate change. “I came away wondering how I could make a difference,” he told the reporter. “And I realized that the little things, switching off lights, turning down your thermostat, that sort of thing, could make a big change overall if you did it at a community level.”
Charnock pulled Roy Alexander, another villager who is also professor of environmental sustainability at the University of Chester, on board, and the idea took off. Now, by doing the easy things like turning down the thermostat, the village has reduced its energy consumption by 23 percent. Charnock and Alexander even convinced the skeptical owner of the local pub to pitch in, telling him he could save as much as £250 by turning off his cooker in the mornings and keeping the beer outdoors rather than running the cooler in the winter.
Now the village is home to solar panels, wind turbines and other sources of alternative energy. And residents have successfully lobbied for a path linking the school, the railways and other communities to encourage walking. But the biggest plus to come out of the whole endeavor was the sense of community the project inspired. “I’ve lived in the village for 25 years, and I’ve met people I’ve never met before as a result of the project,” Lynn May, a local businesswoman, told the BBC.

States spend about 10 percent of their operating budgets on energy bills, and EPA says those costs can be greatly reduced through adoption of well-designed state energy management and greenhouse gas reduction programs.

The Clean Energy Lead by Example (LBE) Guide highlights key strategies, resources, and tools
to help states identify the suite of options best suited to their needs. Each of the strategies promoted in the guide, which include facility-level energy efficiency, green power purchases, clean distributed generation, is road-tested and cost-effective.

The LBE guide is provided through EPA’s State Climate and Clean Energy Program, which assists states in developing and implementing clean energy policies and solutions to climate change.

Montana State University in Bozeman is employing roof tiles that include 80 percent recycled content to put the lid on its Zero Energy House Project. The house, a project of the university’s Extension Housing and Environmental Health Program, is designed to educate builders, architects, engineers, homeowners, students and the general public about resource efficiency.

The Majestic Slate tiles were donated to the project by EcoStar, a Carlisle, Pa.-based division of Carlisle SynTec and a leading manufacturer of sustainable, environmentally friendly steep-slope roofing products. The tiles are made from 80 percent recycled materials and contain little to no inorganic filler material.

“We were excited about the roofing tiles because they are made from recycled materials,” Project Coordinator Jennifer Grossenbacher explained. “We hope to show people that using building products that rely less on natural resources can cost less than traditional building approaches.”

The tiles will be featured on the renovated, World War II-era, Family and Graduate Housing home that showcases practical and financially feasible ways for homeowners and builders to conserve energy and water while saving money and building a healthier home at the same time. In addition, the project will serve as a regional link to credible and sustainable national building information, research, technologies, resources, demonstration and technical/training support for the housing industry.

Billings, Mt.-based MacArthur Company supplied the nails and underlayments necessary for a long-lasting roof. Timmer Roofing of Bozeman is donating labor to install the roofing tiles.

Majestic Slate tiles are half the weight of traditional slate, yet offer superior durability and long-term protection backed by a 50-year Gold Star Warranty.

DOE has allocated a total of $27 million for the awards. The funding opportunity is open to all domestic institutions and entities. Funding will be provided to expand training and professional development to instructors who are creating or improving existing training courses for their local PV or SHC installation workforce. Funding will also be provided to administer the National Consortium for Solar Installer Instructor Training, which will regularly convene stakeholders from industry, education, government and other organizations to meet DOE’s objectives to expand instructor capacity in the PV and SHC installer fields.

To read the full funding opportunity announcement (DE-FOA-0000078), visit https://www.fedconnect.net and click on “Search Public Opportunities” on the right-hand side of the page. Under “Search Criteria,” select “Issuing Office,” enter “Golden Field Office,” then click on “Search.” Once the screen comes up, look for the announcement named “Recovery Act: Solar Market Transformation.” The announcement is split into two topics; the solar installer training is covered under Topic 2.

Applications must be submitted through FedConnect to be considered. Instructions for registering are available in the FedConnect Quick Start Guide at: https://www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/PublicPages/FedConnect_Ready_Set_Go.pd. State and local officials interested in additional information about developing and implementing cost-effective clean energy and environmental strategies that help further environmental and clean energy goals and achieve public health and economic benefits may visit: http://epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-programs/state-and-local/index.html

The solar unit replaces the city’s current lighting system on 30 foot utility poles commonly used on residential and busy streets. Solar power is stored in batteries, and at dusk the the unit powers up white or yellow LEDs for 8 to 12 hours of lighting.

CEO Shane Chapin has some cost projections: “In a town with 50,000 lights the current monthly expense is about $215,400 based on running the lights for 10 hours per day. Switching to ISS generates average savings of about $158,400. Cost savings depend on the available sunlight and we can assess the expected savings for each community.”

Eco Alternative Solutions expects to be able to ship “upwards of 500,000 units per month” from US manufacturers in different regions of the country by mid-2010. The company is also prepared to help cities comply with the American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for funding assistance, and has financing options that keep payments at or below current energy expenses.

Cities wishing to participate in the trial program can contact Chapin at 217-381-8901.

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