How can a city shift to renewable energy when the local power utility is committed to fossil fuels? Boulder, CO has decided to "explore ... forming a city-owned utility". The Kit Carson Electric Coop in Taos, NM has a customer-owned solar array and other renewable energy purchase contracts. The City and County of Santa Fe, NM are researching creating their own publicly-owned electric utility.
Welcome a new blogger to EcoDaddyo - SaraJ. I met Sara through our shared passion for skiing. Of course, snow skiing is a seasonal pursuit which led Sara to travel for the summer. I'll let her tell you what she's up to.
So I decided to try my luck in Hawaii. It seemed like a cool place I'd never been; and with my love of travel, adventures, gardening, and limited finances it's only natural to WWOOF it.
The Four Corners region where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet can be pretty windy. On a particularly breezy day between the Grand Canyon and Four Corners Monument I saw roadside vendors having a 'Wind Sale'. Unfortunately, no one was buying. The question of the day: 'Is the wind blowing away from dirty coal and toward renewable energy?' Or are we caught in a dust storm with no idea of which way is up?
1) The people of the Navajo Nation need jobs and electricity.
2) The Navajo Nation has great wind and solar resources.
3) The Navajo Reservation has highly polluted air due to existing coal-fired power plants.
4) A key air pollution permit for the proposed Desert Rock coal power plant has been remanded.
5) ?
6) The Navajo Nation's Diné Power Authority and Sithe Global Power are committed to moving forward with the Desert Rock Coal Power Plant.
I sometimes envy landscape architects – they have some pretty clear problems to solve, and everyone likes plants. But one of the benefits of working at a large multidisciplinary design firm is that I can wander around the office and see what my colleagues are up to. Since we all speak the language of design we can usually talk pretty coherently across disciplines. I get to live the life of a landscape architect vicariously, but still escape at a moment’s notice when the going gets rough.
What:Global New Energy Summit 2010 When: Sunday, March 21 through Tuesday, March 23, 2010 Where: Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino (15 miles north of Santa Fe)
Don't judge a book by it's cover, especially when the cover is this bad. Fortunately the book 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' by David JC MacKay is a much better book than its wrapping suggests. Professor McKay makes a case for, of all things, a fact and number-based energy policy. The idea that rational decision-making should drive energy policy shouldn't be a radical idea, but strangely enough it is.
When you think of sustainable architecture, energy efficiency and environmental awareness do you think of your local government? The Santa Fe County Board of Commissioners were thinking ahead to rising energy and building maintenance costs and departmental growth when they requested designs for a new Public Works Facility. The new Santa Fe Public Works Facility is a result of forward-thinking public servants and a sustainable architect coming together to build a campus designed for the long run.
New Mexico is windy in the spring. The wide open plains of Eastern New Mexico are even windier. Power utilities are putting up wind farms across New Mexico and the Great Plains to take advantage of all of the free wind. One question hasn't been answered yet - Who will operate and maintain these turbines? Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, NM is establishing the North American Wind Research and Training Center to educate Wind Turbine Technicians to fill that need.
