Written by Rafael Reyes Tuesday, 06 November 2012 02:10

Nov 10: Beyond Platinum LEED, Net Zero Energy

As a warm-up to 350.org’s “Do The Math Tour” presentation on Saturday, November 10, tour Palo Alto's 1st “Beyond Platinum LEED, Net Zero Energy, Passive House,” and potentially shake hands with our surprise guest at 3pm for the ribbon cutting ceremony of the nation's 1st curbside residential electric car charging station, plus the opportunity to meet electric vehicle owners and take drives in their cars.

Vanessa Warheit, with Al Gore's Climate Reality Project, will give a short Climate Change presentation at 2pm, after which Sandra Slater will discuss Palo Alto’s Cool City Challenge.

When: Saturday, November 10, 1:30-4:30pm.

Where: 314 Stanford Ave. Palo Alto

Cost: Free, $10 (or more) donation requested at the door, to your pick of: 350.org, Acterra and/or Sierra Club.

And if you have in season home-grown fruit (lemons, persimmons, figs, apples etc), feel free to bring to share with the crowd.

Parking is available in the residential neighborhood, the home is 4 blocks from Caltrain’s California Avenue station and 1 block from El Camino’s bus lines. Cycling and walking is, of course, encouraged!

Co–Sponsored by: 350.org,  Plug In America, CalCars, Acterra, The Loma Prieta Sierra Club, the Clean Coalition, College Terrace Green Team and the Bay Area Climate Collaborative

Written by Rafael Reyes Thursday, 01 November 2012 23:21

Mayor Lee Announces Cleantech Initiative to Grow Jobs

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced a city initiative to support the growth and development of cleantech businesses. Lee said the CleantechSF initiative will focus on three areas first: using city buildings as demonstration sites for new technologies, attracting institutions to create a cleantech ecosystem in the Mission Bay neighborhood, and supporting startups through attracting more shared work space and incubators and supplying mentors and services.

Read more here.

Written by BACC Editor Tuesday, 30 October 2012 23:08

Bay Area Climate Collaborative and GE Advance the Next Generation of LED Streetlighting

Initiative to Support Municipal Upgrades to Advanced Energy-Efficient Streetlights

SAN JOSE, C.A., Oct. 31, 2012 – The Bay Area Climate Collaborative (BACC) and GE Lighting today announced a project to advance the energy-efficient street-lighting market. The Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative aims to catalyze the upgrade of over 200,000 municipal streetlights in the region to advanced light-emitting diode (LED) technology.

Through the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative, the BACC is developing educational resources and pooling Bay Area-wide interest in LED streetlight conversions with a joint procurement option to secure improved purchase and financing terms on the latest lighting technology. The initiative will serve as a business model that local governments in the Bay Area and beyond can replicate to upgrade streetlights at lower costs while engaging local workforce development. Over five years, the upgrades will deliver up to $50 million in reduced costs for local governments, over 100,000 metrics tons of CO2 avoidance, and many jobs.

GE Lighting will support the BACC’s outreach to local governments on the benefits of LED streetlight technology and development of tools and educational resources that facilitate lighting upgrades. GE also will provide its expertise to inform the resources and strategies for the initiative.

GE has long been at the forefront of next-generation energy-efficient ecomagination lighting. The company has invented every major lighting technology, including the world’s first visible LED, which was created 50 years ago this month. GE is currently working with the City of Las Vegas to convert more than 80 percent of the City’s 50,000 streetlights to LED fixtures, which will provide $2.7 million in annual savings. The BACC is a public-private initiative of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, launched by regional civic and business leaders to accelerate the Bay Area clean energy economy through high-impact, market-oriented projects that can be replicated and scaled.

“Roadways are the new frontier of the solid-state lighting revolution,” said Steve Briggs, GE Lighting’s global product general manager. “We’re finding that once community leaders understand the LED value proposition—over 50 percent energy savings and 10-plus years of life for significant maintenance cost savings versus older incumbent technologies—a shift to LED becomes a priority. They get to think and act like a CFO, which constituents love, with the additional good-neighbor and environmental benefits that LED systems deliver.”

“LED lighting has been identified as a top opportunity for excellent financial, community and environmental benefits, and GE has tremendous expertise on efficient lighting solutions,” said Rafael Reyes, Executive Director of the Bay Area Climate Collaborative. “Through our collaboration, we will help local governments save millions of dollars that can be reinvested to strengthen the regional economy.”

 

About the Bay Area Climate Collaborative

The Bay Area Climate Collaborative (BACC) is a public-private initiative accelerating the clean energy economy. Major partners include Bank of America, Pacific Gas & Electric, and local governments representing over 70 percent of the Bay Area population. The BACC is driving electric vehicle, energy efficiency, residential upgrades and distributed renewables innovation. For more information on the BACC, please visit: www.baclimate.org.

About GE Lighting

GE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business employs 16,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Evolve™, GTx™, Immersion™, Infusion™, Lumination® and Tetra® commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visit www.gelighting.com.

 

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Written by Rafael Reyes Tuesday, 30 October 2012 15:45

Google Tests On-Site Biofuel Production

Camarillo-based company Cool Planet Energy Systems has an intriguing idea about biofuel: instead of churning out fuel from large, central refineries, Cool Planet would rather manufacture modular, shippable micro-biorefineries and sell them to you for on-site biofuel production - a system that can produce biofuel for $1.50 per gallon. Google has been testing this micro-biorefinery at its Mountain View headquarters. So far, the vehicle has traveled more than 2,400 miles while meeting California’s new low carbon fuel standard, which is not scheduled to go into effect until 2020.

Read more here.