“This represents a symbolic and substantive departure from the old ways of doing business” says Tri-State Biodiesel CEO Brent Baker, “Instead of powering the memorial with petroleum that comes from the same countries that produced the terrorists, we are now using domestically produced biodiesel, made from recycling waste cooking oil produced right here in New York City.”

photo by Derek Jensen, courtesy of Wikimedia

Barrel of Oil vs. Bubble Gun

Yes folks, the bubble is about to burst!

Barrel of Oil = $142
Bubble Gun = $5

On a hot summer day, which sounds like more fun??

Check out last winter’s version, with oil at $90/barrel…

Dear Anne,

Your New York State Senator is one of 18 legislators who showed exceptional leadership when it came to protecting the health of the environment this year by supporting all four of the environmental community’s priority Super Bills.

The Super Bills include:

*The Wetlands Protection Act

*The Bigger Better Bottle Bill

*The Global Warming Pollution Cap/Greenhouse Gas Pollution Control Act

*Net Metering Reforms

Please thank your New York State Senators for supporting these critical measures. Without his or her leadership, these bills may never have gotten as far as they did in the Senate. By taking the time to recognize your Senator’s support of the Super Bills, you’re telling our lawmakers that the environment is an important issue to you and to thousands of New Yorkers across the state. Click here to thank your Senator.

I believe I will! It is important to note that only one of these four Super Bills actually became law (the Net Metering Reforms) so we have a long way to go. More details on the bills, including their Assembly supporters, are available here.

Come to the…

Neighborhood Solar Forum
for single family homes

sponsored by Sustainable Flatbush

July 16th @ 8pm
Ditmas Workspace
535 East 17th Street (corner of Ditmas)

http://www.ditmasworkspace.com/

Peter Landy will speak about his experience converting his house to solar power.

Chris Neidl of Solar One will speak about current legislation and initiatives to make residential solar power affordable.

RSVP requested (but not required) to anne@sustainableflatbush.org
Special Thanks to Liena Zagare and Ditmas Workspace

*Spread the word to friends and neighbors!

**The next Solar Forum will focus on multi-family apartment buildings, including co-ops.

Solar Energy
This week the State legislature approved new tax incentives to encourage the installation of more solar electric (photovoltaic) panels in New York. This is great news, but the lack of opportunity for net metering (selling excess power back to the grid) remains been one of the biggest impediments to the growth of solar in New York State. Under current laws, home solar systems have limited net metering abilities and commercial installations have NONE. This is a huge lost opportunity to ease strain on our electrical grid and prevent power outages during the summer, since the peak demand for power (particularly in NYC) occurs at the time when solar panels are at their most effective: in the middle of the day. What can you do?
Send a message to Albany to loosen restrictions on net metering!

• UPDATE from Vote Solar: New York is on a roll. The state also just passed legislation to update its net metering standard, from a claustrophobic 10 kW cap for solar installations, limited to residential only, up to a gold-standard 2 MW, open to all customer classes. This significantly opens the market for large scale solar in New York, and is a critical step towards building a major solar market in the Empire State.

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Under the RGGI, New York will make dirty power plants clean up their act by requiring them to cut carbon dioxide emissions and pay a price for any remaining pollution. Polluter Pays… what a concept!
Tell the Department of Environmental Conservation that you support the RGGI

Bigger Better Bottle Bill
A favorite at Sustainable Flatbush (see here and here), this bill passed the State Assembly on June 11th, and must now pass the Republican-controlled Senate. The bill would add 5-cent deposits to non-carbonated beverages such as bottled water, iced tea, and sports drinks, whose market share was nonexistent when our current bottle bill was enacted in 1982. According to NYPIRG, “nearly 3 billion non-carbonated beverage bottles and cans end up in the trash or polluting our state’s rivers, beaches, and neighborhoods each year because they don’t have a deposit”… so the bill’s potential to reduce litter and increase recycling is huge. I don’t have a link to email your Senator, but will update the post if I find one.

Okay, this one is federal, but also very important:
Green Jobs Act and “Green Block Grant” Program
Activist Van Jones (if you don’t know him yet, check him out!) has this to say about the legislation:

A fully funded Green Jobs Act will distribute $125 million per year to identify needed skills, develop training programs, and train workers for jobs in a range of green industries. That’s enough money to train 30,000 people in green trades – every year. It targets a broad range of populations for eligibility, but it has a special focus on creating “green pathways out of poverty.” In other words, this Act can connect the people who MOST need work – to the work that MOST needs to get done.

A fully funded Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program will distribute $2 billion per year to cities and local governments for energy conservation, energy audits, fuel conservation programs, and the use of renewable energy. These “Green” block grants could create tens of thousands of green-collar jobs – accessible to low-income city residents who most need opportunities and careers.

Urge your Congressperson and Senators to support these programs!

Now go have a beer!

Flier design by Keka

Here’s the concept:

Block Party NYC is a new program by the New York City Streets Renaissance which is helping neighborhoods around NYC come together and enjoy their street for a day, free from the usual hazards and distractions of automobiles. This summer alone, we’re providing mini-grants to over 30 block parties throughout the 5 boroughs. Each of these parties also gets the services of a professional urban planner for a day, who will help find community solutions to community problems like traffic, speeding, and noise and air pollution. They will also talk to residents about what they like and dislike about their street, what they want to preserve, and what needs to change.

Yes, we will discuss all of these serious issues with our neighbors, but we will also hang out and have a great time! Here are all the details:

Newkirk Avenue Block Party, a Livable Streets celebration co-sponsored by Flatbush Development Corporation, New York City Streets Renaissance, and Make Music New York, with participation of Solar One, Brooklyn Compost Project, Council on the Environment of NYC, Transportation Alternatives, Alive Structures, Midwood Martial Arts, and Newkirk Area merchants. Join us for:

Live Music and DJ’s all day!
Traditional NYC Street Games:
Handball, Skully, Hopscotch, Double Dutch, Jacks, and more!
Food Vendors!
Environmental Info and Activities:
Solar Power, Composting, Green Roof/Garden Design, Cell Phone Recycling, etc.,
plus Recycling Games and Art Projects just for kids!

WHEN: Saturday, June 21st, 11am – 6pm, Rain or Shine!
WHERE: Newkirk Avenue between East 16th and East 17th Streets

See you there!

East 4th Street Community Garden, Kensington, Brooklyn, photo by Flatbush Gardener

Campus Road Garden at Brooklyn College

East Village community garden, Manhattan

There was also talk of composting, rainwater harvesting, permaculture, urban agriculture, and many of the other sustainability concepts that I for one have been hoping for a location to demonstrate and educate the community about (myself included!). It’s great to learn that other folks in the neighborhood share the same goals.

A tour of the site is scheduled for this Sunday afternoon… stay tuned for details.

• Mike Adams considers himself a citizen of the earth. He currently splits his time between working with Community Energy to spread the word about wind power and electric choice, working on an two organic farms, Sun One Solar Farm in Bethlehem, CT and Regeneration CSA in High Falls, NY, and teaching math. He feels the true beginnings of sustainability will come when it becomes discussed that large decreases in consumption are essential. He has lived in NYC since the blackout of 2003.

Mike can also answer questions about renewable energy options for NYC residents, including how to change your home electricity bill to “green power”. Feel free to post questions or comments at the end of this report, and be sure to visit NY Wind’s website.

Solar Panels on roof of MTA Stillwell Ave Station (photo by tigre)

NYC Solar Summit, June 21, 2007 at the Museum of Natural History.

About two weeks ago a group of solar installers, policy makers, academics and others interested in the solar industry and how NYC will develop its own solar resource congregated on the day with the most sun to discuss NYC’s solar situation. Many thanks to Bronx Community College and the Center for Sustainable Energy for bringing together this event.

Tria Case, Executive Director of BCC CSE started the day off with words of inspiration, a sense of urgency, and her vision for what NYC can achieve with the right minds, policy and money flow all working together. NYC uses a lot of power; we have experienced blackouts last year and already this year during the very hot days. More will come. We need to generate more power here in the city. Gas is our preferred method of generation right now, but prices will continue to rise and diversity is essential.

Currently NYC uses about 6000-8000 mwh of instantaneous demand. We have less than 2 mw of solar installed. Current Con Ed regulations will allow that to grow to 8 mw — pardon my opinion here, but whoop-di-do. Anthony Pereira of AltPower feels that we could grow to 300 mw installed within a decade. The most interesting (to me) panel of the day was the one with Anthony, Con Ed rep Rebecca Craft, and Colin Murchie from Sun Edison. Sun Edison uses the concept of finding a good solar site, approaching the owner about rental of the roof, and installing their own panels, owning the system themselves. The owner of the property simply lets the roof be used and collects a rent. Goldman-Sachs is a large investor in Sun Edison projects. [From speaking with Colin later I learned that the companies Sun Edison collaborates with are able to sign long-term power contracts, locking in their electricity rates for 10-20 years. Given the widely held theory that electricity rates will at least double within that period, such a contract is no small benefit. -AP]

Con Ed’s statement is that the grid is old and cannot handle the distributed loads that large solar installs would place on the grid. Many call for an independent review of the grid to determine what can be added, where, and what needs to be done to allow more solar to be installed. Without that review, we are at the mercy of Con Ed’s limitations.

Another topic of discussion was the rebates and incentives that are very much driving the solar industry. This is quite interesting. A general rule of thumb is that a job costs up to $10/ watt complete. A 5 kw system would be about $50,000. Rebates and incentives can cover about ½ of this. But there is a limit to each rebate and to the total pot. Installing solar is basically a trade job — you need to go and do an estimate, write a proposal, install and collect money. You need a roofer, electrician, a trained solar person and grunt labor. There are costs that can be eliminated if the idea is that we are in an energy crisis and solar has to be installed quickly and in large amounts. I had a personal discussion that day with Jeff Peterson of NYSERDA in which he told me that the goal of the rebates is not to bring large amounts of solar to the grid but to invigorate the industry and help get many companies started on the path of solar installs and maintenance. I think that that is important but I also think that we need to bring large amounts of solar to the grid and there is nothing that really encourages very large projects — not in NY State right now. We must also realize that this rebate money is coming from somewhere — that is, from everyone who pays an electric bill.

The third session was a bit slower, after a great lunch which we were treated to at a restaurant across 77th that I cannot remember the name of. We ended the day with a presentation about PlaNYC 2030 from Rohit Aggarwala, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability. Here we heard about how NYC will have another 1 million people by 2030, everyone will live within 10 minutes of a park, brownfields will be clean, subway lines will be added, air quality will improve, and more. The goals are set, and steps have begun to be taken, but it takes a lot of steps to walk to California. If this is a true priority of the administration, the possibilities are vast and chance of success, barring peak oil actually happening, are reasonable. I am less than optimistic about seeing some of the visions come to fruition, but I have been advised to be patient, for a lot can get done in this city when all the pieces come together.

Overall the day was great. The weather was superb — this was pre-late June heat wave. The assembling of great minds was incredible. I believe connections were made, relationships developed, and ideas grew as lunchtime discussions provided opportunities for dialogue.

—————————————————————————

I would be happy to answer any specific questions anyone has about the conference, or discuss renewable energy in general. I have started a website, www.nywind.com, with the goal of educating people about wind power and the options that we as electric customers have in choosing our electric supply.

Mike Adams

mike@nywind.com
www.nywind.com
How is your electric generated? Choose wind.