In the same way that historic Californians caught gold fever, the city of Banning caught clean and green fever. But Banning’s solar knight didn’t come ’round the mountain on a noble steed; he came riding in on a stagecoach packed full of groundbreaking solar rebates and tax incentives. Stationed in southern California’s San Gorgonio Pass, this “Stagecoach Town, USA” continues to culture a prolific history in solar power.

Our story begins around the turn of the century, when a little-known statewide public benefit program required by AB 1890 immediately began changing the face of Banning. AB 1890 required that electric utilities collect money from Californians from energy efficiency and renewable projects, and began spreading that accumulated wealth among residents in the form of renewable energy efficiency incentives.

What Happens When a City Pays for Half of Your Solar Installation Costs?

…your town goes solar! The Banning Electric Department began offering rebates of $4 per watt for the purchase and installation of  home solar power — up to 50 percent of total costs. Suddenly, solar panels started popping up on rooftops, buildings found themselves sealed tighter, green spaces and clean air began to spread and the sunlight in Banning somehow felt a bit brighter.

In 2002, the city began offering rebates for developers and homeowners that exceded the state’s Title 24 energy standards. Banning had five Energy Star rebate programs in place by 2002 as well, including one real crowd pleaser that offers rebates for purchase of energy efficient ar conditioning units. A rebate of up to $500 per ton is offered, depending on the unit’s efficiency rating.

Banning: Way Ahead of the Green Game

Indeed, the great solar city of Banning has become the foremost leader in solar power and energy efficiency in all of California, which is saying a lot considering California’s status as unrivaled national solar mecca. Banning was the first city to meet California’s renewable portfolio standard requiring an electric utilty provider supplies at least 20 percent of their electricity sales from renewable energy resources by 2010. Banning accomplished that feat two years ahead of schedule in 2008, and is well on its way to achieving the longer-term goal of 33 percent reduction by 2020.

He may be on a stagecoach, but the city of Banning’s knight in solar armor is nothing to scoff at. In fact, Banning has become its own solar knight and, for its size, a role model to all of California. Banning shows what a determined city can do in a short time with an aggressive solar agenda. When the state of California told Banning to hand out $2 million for solar rebates, Banning handed out $2.5 million. When the people of Banning were told there were solar incentives to be had, the people bought them up faster than the rest of us could fathom. Already, Banning’s funding for solar power rebates is sold out through the summer of 2011.

The city of Banning may seem like the little guy, sandwiched between Palm Springs and mega-city Los Angeles, but there is nothing small about this city when it comes to solar power. A short 21st-century history has already become epic. As Banning’s version of the ol’time litany goes, when she comes around the mountain, she’ll be riding six solar panels when she comes.

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With over 300 sunny days per year, Arizona has become a U.S. hotbed for solar installations. So it should come as no surprise that a company called Salt River Solar & Wind has grown from 7 employees in January, 2009 to 100 in March, 2010, especially since the company was founded in Surprise, Arizona.  Salt River has certainly had phenomenal growth over the course of the last year, fueled by the still-booming market in Arizona.  The company uses industry-leading SunPower solar panels as it struggles to keep up with the growing demand.

After the Arizona Corporation Commission passed the Arizona Renewable Energy Standard in 2006, the founders of Salt River Solar began crafting a business model that eventually launched in December of 2008.  Despite the standard growing pains of small businesses, the company managed to continue expanding and serving its customer base.  The main challenges faced were finding qualified solar installers and securing financing for customers, since the cost is the main deterrent to going solar in the first place.

For skeptics of how much the turn to solar actually creates jobs, Salt River Solar is a perfect example.  For instance, the local auto shop experienced growth as Salt River’s fleet of trucks grew, the business complex Salt River occupies was nearly empty before being filled up as the company expanded, and currently, Salt River is looking to hire 50 more employees in sales, marketing, installation and other related areas.

With any luck, this won’t be the end of the growth for Salt River Solar and other Arizona solar companies.  Today, Arizona’s government is considering ways to implement a feed-in-tariff that will only fuel an already-blazing fire.  Also, Salt River Solar will be launching a new Megawatt Commercial Rooftop program that will be specifically aimed at commercial businesses looking to offset electricity costs or become standalone generators of their own.  No matter what the economy looks like, renewable energy continues to be strong and is likely to stay strong well into the future.  After all, there’s still a long way to go before coal is a distant memory (or at least just a back-up system).

Source: RenewableEnergyWorld.com

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Even though Los Angeles California has approximately 300 sunny days a year to it’s name the high cost of solar installations has made it difficult for Los Angelinos to jump on board the solar trend. Couple that with a lack of solar panel and thermal heater installers and you have an odd lag in solar electricity development in America’s second largest city.

An expected yes vote to increase by 5% the electricity rate is expected to pass without the city council needing to vote on it. Although they could decide to do so. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is losing an estimated $6 a week and is hoping the increase will make up for the shortfall as well as provide extra monies to develop wind farms and repay solar panel users.

The Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosoa is taking steps to make sure solar panel manufacturers are welcomed in L.A. along with the thousands of potential green jobs they could bring with them. He also plans to offer incentives that would encourage Los Angelinos to buy solar installations from local installers and manufactures.

Read more details on the push to solar power up L.A. at the New York Times.

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Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in

It was more than two years ago that we first heard of a potential battery breakthrough developed by Stanford University professor Yi Cui using carbon nanowires. The bundles of nanowires that comprise the battery anode have more room to swell while absorbing lithium ions without cracking, enhancing the energy storage capacity and lifespan of the battery.

Since 2007, Cui and other researchers at Stanford have been working on new cathode materials that can help to take advantage of the properties of the nanowire anode. They have now developed a lithium sulfide electrode that, in combination with the anode, increases the energy density of the battery by a factor of four.

The new lithium sulfide material also resists the safety issues associated with high-capacity lithium ion batteries. Metallic lithium grows crystal structures during charge and discharge cycles that can pierce the separator materials between the electrodes, which can cause shorts and the thermal incidents (aka fires) that we have seen in some consumer electronics devices. The non-metallic lithium sulfide compound doesn’t have this characteristic, making the new batteries safer.

The team now has to find away to make the battery last more then 40-50 charge cycles by stopping the production of poly-sulfides during charge-discharge. It will likely be quite some time before we see these types of batteries commercialized.

[Source: Nano Letters via Technology Review]

Lithium-sulfur and carbon nanowires could increase battery capacity 4X originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Photo: Georgia Aquarium

A new book, Fish Feel Pain?, is hoping to dispel the notion that fish are somehow incapable of experiencing pain or unable to learn. The book, which is being met with some controversy, says that fish have gotten a bad rap as unfeeling simpletons, destined to be thought of as food–even among some who call themselves vegetarians. In fact, fish may be much more complex and sensitive than ever imagined. Sound fishy? You may be surprised…. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Helsinki is pioneering the worlds most advanced municipal heating system. A century ago, New York City put in an early form of this kind of district heating: the steam that gasps from ancient downtown loft radiators in the middle of winter nights is the remaining evidence.

But that was before the computer age. A new twist on district heating is being pioneered by Finland in its capital city, Helsinki. (more…)

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Credit: Mr. Thomas via Flickr.

Scientists say too much carbon dioxide is bad for the Earth. And too much carbon monoxide can kill you. So why are researchers at the University of Michigan excited about turning CO2 into CO? Because the end product could come in handy for producing electricity and hydrogen. U of M chemists, along with others from the University of Oxford, say they’ve come up with an efficient way to turn carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using visible light (like sunlight). … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Wave energy is among the impressive list of renewable energy resources that is being developed in the United States. New Jersey-based developer, Ocean Power Technologies has launched a project that features the nation’s first commercial wave power farm off the coast of Reedsport, Oregon. Once the project is completed, wave energy will generate power [...]
Posted in: Future Energy, Industry, Wave Power

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Scientists have hit on a new, versatile method to significantly improve the detection of trace chemicals important in such areas as national security, human health and the environment. The research team was able to detect and identify tiny particles of the explosive trinitrotoluene or TNT — each weighing less than a billionth of a gram — on the ridges and canals of a fingerprint.

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A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have figured out how to get the the sugar molecules trapped inside inedible plant biomass, a key step in the creation of cellulosic biofuels.

This press release from the school says the process, featured in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, converts up to three-quarters of the sugars locked up in raw corn stover into simple, fermentable sugars … an attractive alternative to the enzyme-based approaches currently favored by biofuels researchers:

“Our chemical process is extremely efficient,” says Ron Raines, a UW-Madison professor of biochemistry and chemistry. “It also has marked advantages over the existing processes-both chemical or enzymatic-for producing sugars from biomass.”

Working under a strong federal mandate, scientists across the nation are developing next-generation biofuels from inedible plant materials such as corn stover, switchgrass and wood chips. Unlike most ethanol on the market today, these so-called cellulosic biofuels would not be derived from food sources, potentially reducing the stress on food systems. But the complex structure of plant material keeps cellulose’s energy-rich sugars locked up in tangled webs, making the process of converting it to fuel difficult. In recent years, scientists have been trying to find and engineer enzymes that can break down the sugars more efficiently, potentially opening the door to the commercial production of fuel from cellulose.

Raines’ chemical approach, which he developed with graduate student Joe Binder, a doctoral candidate in the chemistry department, on the other hand, relies on a mixture of an ionic liquid and dilute acid-both of which can slip past lignin-to dissolve the long chains of sugars in biomass and break them up into individual molecules of glucose and xylose.

The article goes on to say that the researchers were able to get about the same amount of sugar out of the biomass as the more-expensive enzymes usually used. This could significantly cut the cost of cellulosic ethanol, helping move that industry forward.

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