Ah, spring. That time of year when life rejuvenates, when the birds take flight once more and sing their beautiful hymns. It's also the time to reinvent yourself to some degree by getting organized and eliminating unneeded items that clutter up your home. This is commonly referred to as spring-cleaning.
Yet spring-cleaning doesn't have to be relegated to one time of the year. It should be thought of as a concept, rather than a confined opportunity. Whenever you feel that your life is becoming cluttered, disorganized, or 'unclean' is a perfect time to think about spring-cleaning. Here are some ideas to help you get started along your journey to a successful spring-cleaning adventure. ü Start small. Far too many people get it in their heads to clean out everything in their home at once. While the ambition is commendable, it's best to start out small. Confine your focus to one room, or even one closet. ü Define a clear agenda. Are you looking to get rid of things you don't use anymore or do you want to simply organize things? When we approach spring cleaning with a sense of indecision, we can get lost in some of the memories certain items will bring up in us, making it more difficult to part with things. Part of defining a clear agenda means writing down criteria for keeping things you no longer use. ü Focus on the floors and walls. Part of spring-cleaning is about refreshing your home. If you simply go through rooms and organize closets and dressers and avoid cleaning the walls and the carpets, you're missing out on a great opportunity to bring everything back to a stage of purity and newness. Vacuuming with a strong, high-quality vacuum is a great start. ü Invest in your spring-cleaning. Spring-cleaning is more than just cleaning. It's about organizing and getting a solid starting point to move forth with the rest of your year, and possibly even your life. Using the right tools for the job, which includes organizers, shelves, and other items, is vital to success. Don't cut corners trying to save a few bucks. If money is tight, then plan a tag sale with all of the items you'll get rid of with your spring-cleaning. Spring-cleaning can be just like New Year's Day where you get the chance to start fresh. Using some of these ideas to help you get started and get through it will make the process much easier and even fun!
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Anaerobic digestion catches on in Europe, and a UK trade industry, the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA) argues that this technology could produce 20% of Britain’s energy supply cheaply and efficiently. “Anaerobic digestion is a mature technology, with thousands of facilities up and running in European countries with a better track record at dealing with waste, but currently there are only 30 or so plants operating in the UK,” writes Sam Bond at edie. The potential is huge: the ADBA predicts that farmers, local business owners, and municipalities will build almost 1000 new Anaerobic Digestion plants in the next 5 years, at a cost of several billion dollars.
Those plants would together harness enough energy to meet 60% of Britain’s renewable energy targets by 2020, and 10% of the kingdom’s overall energy needs. Lord Redesdale, Executive Chairman of ADBA, claims “Britain will fail to meet its renewable energy targets without rapid building of a nationwide anaerobic digestion infrastructure.” ABDA believes the industry will eventually employ 20,000 – 40,000 people, producing up to 20% of Britain’s domestic gas supply. How do we…err…break this down for you? Anaerobic digestion creates biogas, a fuel that’s also a byproduct of decomposed organic materials. Those materials are stripped down by microorganisms in specialized factories at high temperatures. Biogas is actually really similar to landfill gas in terms of the amount of energy gained. Usually, landfill gas is obtained by municipal waste or solid biomass burning. But that’s pretty harsh for the environment, as toxic substances like mercury, chlorine, and plastics are also burned. Using the anaerobic digestion process allows us to avoid releasing those chemicals into the atmosphere. “There is also no problem with tar and carbon residue disposal and no require expensive gasifiers. Otherwise, landfill methane production has two main advantages: lower production cost and wider range of feedstock,” says the Energy Type Blog. Stateside, dairy cows might be the savior for New York City’s public water system, and another practical use for anaerobic digestion is exhibited This great article from CleanTechnica details the NY Dairy Summit, which hopes to replace damaging natural gas drilling with our bovine friends within 20 years. “NewYork City is fighting to save its drinking water supply from potential contamination by new natural gas drilling operations, and some unlikely heroes may be ambling to the rescue. Dairy cows are being recruited to provide sustainable manure-derived methane biogas to power homes in New York State. Along with other alternative energies, renewable methane could reduce the demand for natural gas, and forestall the potential danger to water supplies posed by unsafe natural gas drilling operations.” MedIndia wrote, “Summit attendees set a 2020 goal that 40 percent of all manure from New York dairy farms goes through the anaerobic digestion process, which captures methane from manure and generates clean, renewable energy. The energy produced from this effort could power 32,000 homes while strengthening the economic vitality of New York’s dairy farms. It also would reduce New York’s greenhouse gas emissions by 500,000 metric tons of carbon, equivalent to taking 100,000 cars off the road.” Mooove over, natural gas! That’s the scary question posed in this opinion from Saadallah Al Faithi, former head of Energy Studies Department at OPEC Secretariat in Vienna. The International Energy Agency publishes an annual report called World Energy Outlook, which offers the best available long-term predictions for oil and energy. According to the IEA, 2/3 of oil in 2030 will need to be produced from oil fields which…currently don’t even exist. According to al-Faithi, “sustained investment is needed mainly to combat the decline in output at existing fields, which will drop by almost two-thirds by 20303.
Here’s the question. Where’s all that oil? Despite many countries’ ever-increasing commitment to alternative energy, 77% of our energy demands are now being met by fossil fuels. The World Energy Outlook predicts that our oil dependency will grow by as much as 30% by 2030. So what happens if the future of oil is dried up? According to a mathematical principle called the Hubbert Linearization, we’ve already depleted 52% of the planet’s oil reserves. With rapid industrialization in China and India on the horizon, there’s no way we will even consume oil at the same rate. Energy Bulletin author Jeffrey Brown studied the Texas Oil fields. His conclusion? “This is close to where Texas and the Lower 48 peaked and started irreversible declines in production. Based on the HL method and historical models, I believe that Saudi Arabia and the world are now on the verge of irreversible declines in conventional oil production.” The world’s two most populated nations are industrializing at warp speed, ready to guzzle oil, and we’re planning to extricate it from oil fields that don’t exist yet. Oil barons are talking wind power. Looks like it’s time to increase our focus on creating clean energy and increasing carbon markets in the US. Thankfully, we here at Harvest Power have invested in cutting-edge urban mining technologies to create new ways to get energy. Click here to find out more. Scroll down to read the article. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released its World Energy Outlook (WEO), an annual long term forecast for energy and the oil market. This research is usually sought after for the wealth of information it contains and for the forecasts of energy demand and supply as seen by an organisation representing the rich industrial countries as major consumers of all forms of energy. This year’s WEO raises questions as much as it gives answers due to the alarmist views that were pronounced this year. The IEA prepared this outlook against a background of the worst economic slump in a long time but with some signs of recovery already emerging. The collapse of oil prices in 2008 and their rebound in 2009 affected the outlook. The IEA assumes future oil prices will rise with the marginal cost of energy production, reaching $190 (Dh697.90) per barrel in nominal terms in 2030. At the same time and because of the above the slump in investment needs time to recover but this may lay the ground for future shortages. Finally the heated activities and conferences to tackle climate change will undoubtedly affect the outlook. Against this backdrop and in the reference case, IEA forecasts are less than those of 2008 despite the promised economic recovery. Energy demand is forecast to grow from 12,000 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe) in 2008 to 16,800 mtoe in 2030. The demand increase, or 93 per cent of it, is predicted to happen in the non OECD countries and essentially in China and India where energy demand is likely to grow from 2,700 mtoe in 2008 to over 5,000 mtoe in 2030. Fossil fuels are seen to contribute about 77 per cent of energy demand and therefore begs the question if this path is sustainable considering the risk of climate change. Oil demand which stood at 85 million barrels a day (mb/d) in 2008 is expected to increase to 105 mb/d in 2030, a huge difference from the 2005 forecast of 120 mb/d. This reduction is the result of factoring in the impact of the economic crisis, expected higher prices and policies of the industrial countries regarding climate change. But the most important question regarding the oil forecast is the alarming view of the IEA that the majority of oil production in 2030 will be coming from “fields yet to be developed or found”. The IEA goes on to say “sustained investment is needed mainly to combat the decline in output at existing fields, which will drop by almost two-thirds by 20303. A few years ago and even when forecasts were very much higher, the IEA was always assured of the availability of resources without such lost and found statements. This has led some commentators to call this “capitulation to peak oil” and the Guardian on November 9 quoted an unidentified employee of the IEA as saying the world is “closer to running out of oil”. However, the IEA does not want to admit this in case it causes panic buying and a severe impact on oil prices and financial markets. The Americans are always influencing the IEA to underplay the rate of decline and to overplay the chances of finding new oil and it is a “rule” in the IEA not to anger the US. Other unidentified former employees called the 105 mb/d 2030 production as “at best optimistic and at worst implausible”. Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the IEA, who used to work for Opec secretariat before joining the opposition, said in a recent interview that global oil production would “peak within 10 years and that the governments were “woefully’ underprepared for the crisis”. Although the statement was somehow retracted or given a different interpretation, it is probably going to raise further debate and the importance of what is involved cannot be underestimated. Similarly, gas demand is expected to increase from 3 trillion cubic metres (TCM) in 2007 to 4.3 TCM in 2030 at a rate of 1.5 per cent a year, similar to oil. Reserves of 180 TCM are sufficient for 60 years at current consumption yet the IEA expects as a result of depletion that “close to half of the world’s existing production capacity will need to be replaced by 20303, again suggesting a peak and decline of existing fields. Trade in gas is likely to increase from 677 billion cubic meters (BCM) in 2007 to 1070 BCM in 2030 where the Middle East is expected to see the biggest increase in production and export. However, in the short run, a glut is likely to develop until demand really picks up. You won’t find many pundits or news junkies in the Maldives, a scattered nation of 1200 atolls in the Indian Ocean. There aren’t climate change skeptics, massive industrial projects, or vast electric grids. With only 200 inhabited islands, the Maldives is the most disparate nation on the planet. Nevertheless, it will someday be known as the first nation to be completely submerged underwater. There isn’t room for climate change skepticism in a land where everything–cities, resorts, villages–will be swallowed by the sea.
Once known as “The Island Kingdom,” the world’s smallest Muslim nation only exists 1.5 meters above sea level. As climate change specialists have recently noted, Arctic ice is melting at a faster rate than anyone expected. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels could rise by 25-58cm…just by 2100. And that’s just if we continue on the way we do. As China and India continue to modernize, it’s very possible for global warming to actually accelerate. . The International Herald Tribune notes, “the journals Science, Nature Geoscience and Nature have all published articles featuring estimates that exceed two feet, some saying that rises could be as much as five feet by the end of the century.” The article quotes University of Potsdam professor Stefan Rahmstorf, who says, “The rise to 2100 is just the beginning of a much higher sea-level rise. This is a real long-term effect that we are setting into motion. It will continue.” Rahmstorf says he believes the increase could be as great as 1.4 meters, or four and a half feet, by 2100. There aren’t many options for the Maldives. Build walls around 200 islands? The Climate Change report also claims that temperature levels in the South Pacific region will increase 14% by 2060. Food security and water resources will be severely threatened. The Maldives will have the dubious honor of being the first nation to be forced to move because of a man-made ecological disaster. And so the exodus begins. Every year, tourist dollars will be funneled to a homeland fund. Currently, it’s reported that the Maldives are considering locations in Sri Lanka, Australia, and India. For a people whose strongest identifiers are as fishermen and seafarers, the prospect is daunting. Another option is to seriously fortify six or seven smaller atolls, and relocate the population to these new islands, as Male sinks. A few government officials even advocated sending every Maldives citizen out into the world with $300,000 and a passport, as “environmental refugees.” There’s another option, of course. And that’s to seriously change the way we generate and use energy, so that nations like the Maldives won’t become the world’s Atlantis. The nation’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, has pledged to make the Maldives entirely carbon-neutral within a decade. That’s more of a challenge than you’d think, even for a sparsely populated country like this. There might only be 365,000 people on the square mile of Male, the Maldives’ island capital, but half of them exist on less than a dollar a day. Only 200 islands are inhabited, but they’re home to 90 of the most expensive resorts in the world, where prices often exceed $1000 per night. As GQ notes, “Though the cost of the proposed refit—155 wind turbines, half a square kilometer of rooftop solar panels, biomass plants burning coconut husks—would exceed the expected revenue for the homeland fund, it makes twisted sense for the young leader to promote both.” Alternative energy, or alternative homeland? Apocalyptic statements aside, the Maldives’ president chooses to swim, rather than sink. To draw attention to the island nation’s plight, Nasheed convened the first underwater parliament in fall of 2009. The president-elect required all of his cabinet officials to learn how to scuba dive before the underwater meeting. The cabinet meeting took place around a sixteen foot desk. Using hand signals, the officials all signed a declaration calling for global cut in carbon emissions, to be presented at the United Nations conference on climate change last week. It’s not just the Maldives that will be in trouble, either. Nations like Amsterdam are also in a perilous situation if sea levels continue to rise. And according to a recent World Bank study, “it will cost developing countries USD 75 billion to a 100 billion a year for the next 40 years to adapt to climate change.” That’s not just island nations, either. “We need to learn more about what’s happening with the earth,” Nasheed said to the New York Times. “The world might not be that safe. We might not survive. We don’t know exactly what will happen…If these scientists are not able to save the Maldives, then they won’t be able to save the world.” What makes Germany a green success story?
Cooperation between government and commercial interests, a highly trained workforce ready to embrace 21st century technology, and a daunting mission. Germany’s new climate change legislation calls for a 36% reduction in CO2 levels by 2020. Government leaders are also drafting a proposal to cut out coal completely by 2018. The U.S. can learn a lot by analyzing how Germany’s commitment to clean energy has ratcheted up the national economy in such a short time. According to this great blog post on redgreenandblue, 15% of Germany’s energy comes from renewable sources, an increase of 11% in the last four years. Talk about progress. Author Timothy B. Hurt says, “There is a reason that Germany has half of the world’s installed solar generating capacity, and it is not the Northern European country’s boundless sunshine. Renewable energy capacity has achieved such tremendous growth because of the German government’s aggressive energy policy.” Below is the article from CleanTechnica. “A few weeks ago, I visited Intersolar North America, an exhibition for photovoltaics, solar thermal technology, and solar thermal architecture. The exhibition, which was previously only held in Germany, had an understandably large German presence (including a large beer garden). During my time there, I stopped by the German Energy Agency booth, and was quite impressed with what I found. So, without further ado, here are 4 reasons why we should be paying a whole lot of attention to the Germany renewable energy market. 1. Germany has the world’s largest wind power sector— but had barely any notable wind power at all 16 years ago. With over 20,600 MW of installed capacity, Germany is the world’s wind power leader. And they accomplished this feat pretty quickly, having had less than 100 MW in 1992. The second place wind leader, Spain, only has approximately 12,000 MW of capacity. 2. The country has the world’s second largest solar power market, despite having extremely cloudy weather. Germany comes in as number 2 for solar power, with 750 MW of peak capacity as of 2006. However, it is far and away the European leader for photovoltaic capacity, with a capacity of 3063 MW. Additionally, the world’s largest solar cell producer (Q-Cells) is located there. Oh, and the country also has the largest solar thermal market in Europe. 3. Over 214,000 people work in the German domestic renewable energy industry. With 2.3 million renewable energy workers worldwide, Germany once again takes the cake as a pioneering country. Last year, German companies accounted for 38 percent of the total wind energy market. 4. They have progressive renewable energy laws. The German government has just agreed on a new climate change legislative package with the goal of reducing CO2 emissions up to 36 percent by 2020. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel calls it the biggest climate change package in the world.” As a New York City resident and a member of the Harvest team, I was pleased to attend last week’s roundtable discussion on food waste recycling in NYC hosted by NYSAR3. The speakers included Christine Datz-Romero from the Lower East Side Ecology Center, Andrew Rigie from New York State Restaurant Association, and Adam Pasquale from Action Carting Environmental Services, Inc.
The theme of Christine’s presentation was ‘Composting is Hot!”, which reflected the popularity of her program and the burgeoning trend and awareness of the opportunity to recycle food waste. Residents of NYC can go to stands located at various different Greenmarkets in the city to drop off kitchen scraps. The Ecology Center’s facility then processes about six tons per week under the Manhattan Bridge using an in-vessel system and windows, which is amazing to think about, given the density of Manhattan. They are a good neighbor with their clean and odor-contained facility and the best part about it, is that the compost is sold back to city residents at the Union Square Greenmarket. (In case you’re wondering, some New Yorkers are lucky enough to have outdoor space while others make do with windowsill herb and flower gardens). Andrew talked about food waste from the perspective of restaurants. In a challenging, relatively low-margin business, restaurants are always looking for ways to cut costs. However, from Andrew’s presentation and from some comments during the Q&A, it seems that sustainability and reducing their environmental footprint has become just as important. It seems that the restaurants are remembering the first ‘R’ and focus on ways to reduce their waste. Step 2 is to work with companies like Action and Harvest who are providing services and facilities that recycle restaurant food waste. Adam’s presentation discussed how Action works with their restaurant customers to source-separate and recycle their food waste. My main take away from today’s roundtable is that while there is a lot of hard work ahead of us, the movement supporting organics recycling combined with energy & nutrient recovery continues to gain momentum in all areas of the country. The private market, the community, non-profits, and governments are all moving in the right direction. I’m very proud that it’s happening in my backyard. (To be clear, for me and my ‘cozy’ NYC apartment, that’s a figurative backyard). A sort of European bio-gas arms race begins, as Britain continues to turn more attention to developing bio-gas power plants. Educating the public continues to be a huge factor, however, in approving new bio-gas technology in suburban and rural areas. The county of Norfolk recently resubmitted plans for an anaerobic digestion power plant that will power 1,500 homes, located on the edge of Attleborough. Concerns from local residents about noise, smell, and traffic issues stemming from the constant hauling of waste are being eased by officials from SS Agriservices, the local renewable energy firm. The project was even withdrawn from the Breckland Council last summer after Britain’s Environmental Agency expressed reservations about odors that might emanate from the site.
Since manure and waste products are often used in the digestion process, many bio-gas facilities build their tanks underground to reduce concerns about odors. Tim Evans, the managing director of Renewable Zukunft, which is working in partnership with SS Agriservices, confirmed that the prospective facility at Attlesborough was be resubmitted with plans to store the waste underground. SS Agriservices, is a collective of local farmers and agricultural contractors in Norfolk and Suffolk hoping to build the region’s first anaerobic digestion project. Located on a poultry farm off Stony Lane in Attleborough, the power station would be fueled by manure and waste crops like maize, cereals, and grains. The methane gas produced would drive a generator and create electricity. Evans said he believes that bio-gas was a more reliable and “attractive” source of energy than onshore and offshore wind farms. While other European nations like Germany and Austria can boast over 7,500 biogas facilities, there are only a handful currently running in the UK. “The government is putting lots of money into wind farms, which only run for 25 percent of the year, and we run for 95 percent of the year,” Evans said. “It is not windy everywhere, but there are farms everywhere, and one of the attractions of Crows Hall Farm is that it is very close to a suitable connection to the National Grid.” Ready for a debate?
Wow! Enviro-author Jonathan Hiskes throws down the gauntlet in this column detailing the enviro-rift forming between the International and U.S. Chambers of Commerce. The U.S. Chamber’s very un-green climate policy created quite the hullabaloo last year when the CoC asked for changes to the Waxman-Markey Energy bill. Or, as another Grist writer, David Roberts, so succinctly put it: The CoC wants to “balance environmental objectives with the need for economic growth and job creation” by lowering targets, increasing free allocations, ditching the renewable energy standard, waiting for China and India to act first, completely preempting state programs, and increasing subsidies to fossil-fuel companies.” That hullabaloo thickened into a Category-5 public relations nightmare by May. 30 corporations and CoC members, including Johnson & Johnson and Nike, asked the Chamber to refrain from making climate-change statements that didn’t reflect members’ viewpoints. In fact, only four of the Chamber’s 123 business board members have publicly questioned the scientific consensus on climate change and reject the need for federal regulation to reduce global warming pollution. As Roberts notes, “Many, many business see enormous opportunities in the shift to clean energy. Many businesses want the stability and predictability ACES would bring. And many of those businesses happen to be members of the CoC.” Now, the International Chamber of Commerce is distancing their organization from our stateside CoC–and the climate change debate is once again to blame. Indeed, local chambers from Indiana to Boulder to Miami are hosting events on climate change and green jobs. Do you believe that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce should change their stance on climate change? If so, what changes are needed? The article from Grist.org is below COPENHAGEN—There is numbingly little news coming out of most of the 20 or so daily press briefings at the Copenhagen climate talks. Officials from national delegations and research, policy, and trade groups seem to use them to restate their already-known positions, wrapping them in as much jargon as possible just to be safe. That held true for Thursday’s briefing by the International Chamber of Commerce, where several American reporters came to learn how the ICC felt about the U.S. Chamber’s antics this year. The U.S. Chamber, for a refresher, fought the clean energy bill that passed the U.S. House this summer, called for a 21st Century Scopes Monkey Trial to question the science of climate change, and was deserted by several prominent members—Apple, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Exelon, and PNM Resources—who trashed the Chamber’s climate policy on their way out. ICC officials in Copenhagen made it clear, in a roundabout way, that they don’t share the U.S. Chamber’s opposition to setting a price on carbon. (Business reps here tend to agree that a worldwide price on carbon, whether through cap-and-trade or a tax, is the One Crucial Thing from which myriad positive changes will flow.) The ICC supports an international climate plan that covers all major emitters. The U.S. Chamber says it wants a climate plan too, but it wants one so watered down as to be meaningless. In response to a question about the U.S. Chamber’s behavior, ICC Environment and Energy Commission Chair Laurent Corbier said, “We are definitely a very wide organization, composed of many, many different organizations and members. We do have a lot in common. From time to time, other organizations will have their own views and their own priorities. We do not dispute that. It’s something that does not stop the progress of the ICC.” That’s sort of diplomatic speak for “We’re not with stupid.” “We’re obviously coming from a different position,” ICC spokesperson Mary A. Kelly said afterward. She clarified the formal relationship: The official American affiliate to the International Chamber is the Council for International Business. The U.S. Chamber is an affiliate of the CIB—two steps removed from the International Chamber. But the ICC is not deliberately distancing itself from the U.S. Chamber; the two were never closely related to begin with, she said. By the way, the U.S. Chamber’s Steve Eule is attending much of the Copenhagen conference. He wrote down a predictable Chamber wish list for the talks, which hilariously notes that “developing countries will be the source of over 80 percent of future emissions out to 2050,” so they better do their share of cleaning up the mess. Focusing only on future emissions is just a tad bit hypocritical for a leading industry group in the country that’s done more carbon polluting than any other. Don’t let Santa see that wish list, Steve. As a member of the finance team at Harvest, I spend many days locked in my office trying to meet reporting deadlines for our investors. Don’t get me wrong – those deadlines indicate belief in what we do and confidence in our ability to do it, so I’m happy to have them! But sadly they leave me little time to witness the remarkable progress happening daily in our industry. Last week, I came across this simple example that not only reconnected me to the work we are doing at Harvest, but also inspired me to push my own recycling habits even further.
was catching up with an old friend and she was telling me all about a new job she started recently. After she called her new company “green”, I prodded for examples – skeptically, of course, as green washing has become so pervasive that the green label has lost nearly all of its meaning. And then she told me about the tiny trash bins. This is when I got excited. She has a recycling bin of course (a generously oversized one), but the only trash bin she gets is a tiny, soup can-sized bin that fits on her desk. And recycling bins are at every corner and in every room, but trash bins are only in the kitchen. And there’s no trash collection service, so every day she needs to empty her trash bin into the kitchen one. And the most inspiring part of all – not a single person has complained. This story is a simple and powerful example of the primary challenge Harvest and our peers face in the recycling industry: changing behavior. And it also demonstrates what I believe are the best defenses against stubborn old habits: strong leadership, and incentive. The leaders of this company are gutsy! Instead of making a passive statement like “We will work to reduce our waste” – something you can probably find in every company’s annual report and something that has no meaning or measurement – this company made a bold decision, and committed to it without exception. And, they recognized the simple truth that all people are self-serving … as much as we hate to admit this. If you force me to empty my own trash, I will probably think twice before using it. And if you give me a trash bin so tiny that not even Tinkerbell would find it useful, I will REALLY think twice before using it. Something as simple as the size of a trash bin has shifted an entire population’s mindset from “What can I recycle?” to “Why can’t I recycle this?” This is an incredibly powerful shift, and one that needs to take place across cities and states, not just companies. Harvest is working hard to affect change and provide the best environmental and economic solution to cities and towns, but much of our success hinges on decisions made at the local government level. The evidence is clear – we need gutsy leadership! The Canadian Government’s Clean Energy Fund has announced that Harvest Power Canada, Ltd. has been selected to receive an investment in support of Harvest Power’s proposed anaerobic digestion and renewable energy project at its Fraser Richmond subsidiary outside of Vancouver, British Columbia.
Harvest’s Fraser Richmond plant is one of 19 projects across Canada to be identified by the Clean Energy Fund, part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. In selecting Harvest’s proposal, the Clean Energy Fund recognized that Harvest’s technology “has the potential to be rapidly deployed across Canada as a mechanism to divert food wastes from landfills and produce renewable energy.” “Investments in clean energy technologies are a key part of our approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the environment,” said the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources. She said that she hopes projects like Harvest ’s facility will help bring Canada to the forefront of clean energy technology, while also providing green jobs for Canadians. The Clean Energy Fund will offer up to $146 million to support 19 projects across Canada that help create renewable and clean energy power sources across the country, including integrated community energy solutions, smart grid technology, and renewable applications with solar, wind, tidal and geothermal energy. Harvest is expected to received between $2.5 – $5 million (CDN) following negotiations and signing of a formal contribution agreement with Natural Resources Canada. “We’re tremendously excited by the possibilities that Canada’s Clean Energy Fund presents to our Fraser Richmond plan,”says Harvest Power CEO Paul Sellew. “Installing the anaerobic digestion plant at our facility will allow us to harvest the energy from the organic materials we recycle, providing clean, renewable, independent energy for British Columbia. This project will enable us to further Fraser Richmond’s leadership position in helping the Metro Vancouver Region meet its ambitious Zero Waste Challenge goal of diverting 70 percent of the region’s solid waste from landfills by 2015. The Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre facility is North America’s largest permitted food waste and yard waste compost facility. One of the most productive compost facilities in North America, Fraser Richmond will be the first project to utilize high solids anaerobic digestion on a commercial scale on the continent. Harvest plans to begin construction this summer on the first phase of the facility, which will process 30,000 tons of organic waste every year and produce nearly 6800 MWh/yr of electricity, enough electricity to power over 500 homes. Harvest will provide more details about our Fraser Richmond facility in the coming months. The Clean Energy Fund is investing nearly $1 billion in technology development and demonstration throughout Canada. Total investments under the Clean Energy Fund for large and small demonstration projects are benefiting Canada’s economy by leveraging nearly $3.5 billion in further investments by industry and other levels of government. What’s the Clean Energy Fund? An instrument of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the Clean Energy Fund is intended to generate new green economic activity in the short term, while strengthening the foundation for sustainable prosperity in the future. Almost $2.4 billion dollars in new measures are dedicated to creating and supporting a clean and sustainable environment, and helping to meet Canada’s climate change objectives. |
No Forest No Future
Nature Is Important, So Save Nature for Sustainability. Archives
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