Some Green Stuff
Huff P Frog. No, not HuffPo, Huff Park. Sometimes they pose for you. 1000 px here.
This week in green:
Remember the story from last September about plans for Michigan's largest wind farm at Breckenridge? It's now taking shape, as crews will begin to install the turbines in the next few weeks. The wind farm will produce 200 MW of power - more than the 164 MW combined that we have now.
Mason County planners have approved a 100 MW farm for the Lake Winds Energy Park in Riverton and Summit townships. There has been some flak from locals who are apparently being aided by national * coughKochcough * wind farm opponents, but those with leases are happy. Consumers Energy, helping with the push, applauded the vote but hasn't announced its future plans.
Will home turbines gain in popularity? Ace Hardware and True Value are selling the gearless Honeywell turbine that can produce power at as low as 2mph wind speeds; read about one installed on a Detroit residence here. Home Depot announced this week that they will begin selling a product from Skystream in select locations, also designed for low wind speeds. Yes, it's a bit pricey now, but I'm willing to bet that will fall if they do become a standard.
More of this please: Mercy High School in Farmington Hills has signed a 20-yr. contract with DTE to produce 400 KW of energy from a rooftop solar array on the school. Big buildings seem such a natural for solar farms.
The LA Times takes a look at our Greenville Uni-Solar story today, and reports what we already know: If you provide the policy, we can build it all here. If you don't, these companies will move where the policy exists. Like Ontario...
... and China. Devon Swezey, Project Director at Breakthrough Institute, warns of a coming clean-tech crash in America and Europe if we continue on the "austerity" path. "Short-term consequences will likely be a migration of much of the industry to Asia." Provided the Chinese don't burst their real-estate bubble under massive debt and take everyone down with them, that is.
Everywhere I look lately, there's Debbie Stabenow. She's got a great idea for another $2B investment in advanced batteries, from mining the lithium, to more research and development, to manufacturing and beyond. The bill will be introduced next week. Senator Stabenow will visit Holland tomorrow, and will be back in Grand Rapids on July 22 for a walking tour of the Wealthy Heights district.
Mark Phelan at the Freep tells us that soon "virtually every car will be a hybrid". Yup. It's inevitable.
"Green living" has become very popular. So good to see.
That's all for now...