Category Archives: Cambridge

Berkeley capitalizes on solar… Can Cambridge?

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PV ArrayThe city of Berkeley, California has raced ahead in deploying solar capacity through an innovative approach that finances solar arrays for any home or business by including a surcharge to the owner’s property tax bill for 20 years to recoup the cost. If the home or business is sold, the assessment rolls over to the new owner.  This innovative solution to the challenge of financing the high upfront costs of renewable energy projects has resulted in 626 solar installations; generating 2.9 MW or reducing CO2 emissions by 2,300 tons/yr.

The city of Cambridge is also deeply committed to reducing its carbon emissions and has set a goal to reduce its emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2010 and obtain 20% of its  municipal electricity load from renewable sources by 2010.  Cambridge now has 33 solar PV systems installed, generating 267.171 kilowatts of clean, renewable energy generating capacity.

The potential for additional pv projects in Massachusetts looks sunny, with the passage of Global Warmning and Energy Bills that might also generate the type of demand experienced in Berkeley, California.  At a recent Net Metering workshop presented by Larry Chretien, CEO of the Mass Energy Consumers Alliance, he shared how the Green Communties Act will open the way for Neighborhood Net metering projects that potentially will allow consumers to buy into their own renewable energy cooperateives.    To learn more, you can access the Net Metering Power Point Presentation at http://www.massenergy.com/News.PR.html.

But if you are not ready yet or do not have the financing for investing in PV’s, you can support renewable energy now for a small monthly fee ($5- $12+/ month on average) by making a donation to the New England Wind Fund or signing up to NSTAR Green’s renewable energy program.

Solar Incentive

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Rising energy costs, increased consumer demand, and climate change can make any of us feel overwhelmed about the state of energy production in the US, and the world.   Many of us would love to go “off the grid” but aren’t sure how or how much it would cost.  The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative – Renewable Energy Trust can help.  MTC is a quasi public entity funded by a portion of each of our electric bills.  The money goes to support communal renewable energy programs such as Community Wind Collaborative, Clean Energy Choice and Commonwealth Solar.  Commonwealth Solar, a particularly successful program, was initiated in January, 2008 by the Patrick Administration and MTC.  The program provides rebates for PV installation through a non-competitive application process.  Residential, public, commercial and industrial parties can all benefit.  If you’re curious about installing solar panels at your residence or business, it’s easier than you think!   Please see: http://www.masstech.org/solar/ to learn more.

New Energy… One Atom at a time.

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340px-graphene_xyz2MIT has just announced it is working with a substance called graphene to find new information technology and energy related applications.

For those of you without a post-grad science degree, graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms formed into perfect hexagonal patterns. Graphene has several other properties that identify it as a material with extraordinary potential. For instance, it was found to have a breaking strength 200 times that of steel.

It is also one of the most expensive materials ever produced. A ’sheet’ of  graphene the width of a human hair current costs almost $1000 to produce. This is the part of the story that got Warm Home Cool Planet’s attention, however:

“Unique electrical characteristics could make graphene the successor to silicon in a whole new generation of microchips, surmounting basic physical constraints limiting the further development of ever-smaller, ever-faster silicon chips…  that’s only one of the material’s potential applications. Because of its single-atom thickness, pure graphene is transparent, and can be used to make transparent electrodes for light-based applications such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or improved solar cells.”

If something invisible to the human eye can be used to make, store and transport energy, the possibilities for alternative energy generation would seem to be limitless. Now, if we could just do something about the price.

Are Smart Meters a Smart Idea?

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410px-intelligenter_zaehler-_smart_meterThe debate on the value (and costs) of wide spread deployment and installation of ‘Smart Meters‘ for monitoring energy usage rages on-most notably in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

A succession of articles and editorials has been published recently, with each author taking a particular side of the argument. As is the case with many issues batted about by the press these days, the reader is left none the wiser.

There are obviously large capital costs involved in both preparing each property for energy use metering and providing a display device for each customer to examine their energy costs–then make intelligent decisions about saving energy and reducing the costs of powering their house.

After seeing how this debate is starting to be defined in the public arena, Warm Home Cool Planet would like to share a couple of observations:

Given the fact most houses have internet access, there should be some cost savings in allowing customers to use their current computers or mobile devices to view real-time energy use information through a web browser. All you need is a simple web connection for each energy device that reports through a customer’s current web connection to a central database. This would also allow the utility to see energy consumption patterns in real-time, including the ability to respond to service outages before the customer even notices.

Secondly, the ‘unique’ editorial policies of papers owned by Rupert Murdoch allow editors to add their own opinions to articles which are meant to serve as informational tools for readers to make their own decisions. For instance, last week’s article was titled “Smart Meter. Dumb Idea?“. What would the casual reader make of this?

Editorials published in response “Smart Meters are, well, Smart” are revealed to be written by leaders of trade associations who are hardly neutral observers on this subject. In the end, WSJ readers are likely to walk away with a sense of confused paralysis on the whole issue.

No matter which side of this argument you’re on, that is not the outcome we need.

Cambridge Forum in Harvard Square

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Cambridge Forum is one of public radio’s longest running public affairs programs. The program is recorded live every week in Harvard Square, before being broadcast on WGBH.

Next week, noted futurists Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus from the Breakthrough Institute will be speaking on the topic “Beyond the Pollution Paradigm: Why We Can’t Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists” 

As you can probably tell from the forum topic, these guys don’t follow anyone’s lead–or pull any punches–in suggesting how we can fix our environment and secure our energy future. They have been labeled as infidels and pariahs by everyone from the Sierra Club to Al Gore for their pro-growth, pro-technology environmental ideas. 

Warm Home Cool Planet will be there. What about you?

Time & Date: 7:30pm – May 6, 2009
Location: First Parish: 3 Church St., Cambridge, MA

Cambridge’s Efficiency Goal Gap

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Recently, we’ve begun some efforts to analyze and map energy use data in the City, and a volunteer created this compelling graph that roughly demonstrates how far Cambridge is from meeting its goal to reduce emissions to pre-1990 levels. Of course the graph actually plots electricity use, and not emissions but the two are well correlated, and we hope to have a more complete graph of emissions including natural gas in the future.

Cambridge Efficiency Goal

Cambridge's Efficiency Goal Gap

Note: Due to limitations in the available data, energy use for some apartments is included in “Commercial.”

If you’d like to learn more about improving energy use in your home or office and receive an audit visit the Cambridge Energy Alliance.

Report from the Summit

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Cambridge, MA-Friday, April 24: Over 300 people, including your faithful Warm Home Cool Planet correspondent, assembled in Walker Memorial Hall at MIT to hear from some of the major players and most provocative thinkers in the field of sustainability. Unlike the content you’ll find here, which stretches all the way from global energy policy to insulating your water pipes, the Sustainability @ MIT conference was exclusively focused on the big picture.

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Happy Earth/Wind/Sun Day

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Wind TurbineWind TurbinesIt’s Earth Day, 2009.  What have you done this year to lessen your carbon footprint, save energy, and shop responsibly?  I remain imperfect although I claim to be “green.”  I educate myself, take public transit to work, turn off lights, shop with reusable bags and keep the heat off as much as possible.  Still, is this enough?  I’ve decided it’s important to not get overwhelmed and instead do what you can using the “every vote counts” motto.

For example, a simple way to support renewable energy is a mere few clicks away.  Just recently I learned Boston-area residents have the option to support clean wind power under NSTAR Green. This program makes it easy for consumers to support wind energy by demanding their electricity be provided by wind, not coal.  You have the option of choosing between 50% and 100% wind power.  And no, it’s not that expensive.  So, on this Earth Day, do your part by checking out NSTAR Green and switching from coal-generated electricity to wind.