3p Contributor: Sarah Lozanova
Recent Articles
Careers in Wind Farm Development: GIS Specialist
This is the second article in a seven part series on careers in wind farm development. The first part can be viewed here.
The creation of a wind farm requires a wealth of geographic information for effective planning. A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialist provides much of this material through maps of site characteristics, such as land parcels boundaries, transmission lines, infrastructure, environmentally sensitive areas, land cover, wind resources, turbine micrositing, and topography. These maps are used in every step of planning from energy analysis through construction.
The information provided by a GIS specialist is the foundation for determining the wind resource. “We receive digital elevation maps from our GIS department,” says Diane Reinebach, Senior Energy Specialist for RMT, Inc. “That is loaded into the software, which knows the wind direction. It can then predict how the terrain impacts the wind over the site, and whether there are speed-ups, slow-downs, or turns in the wind.”
Careers in Wind Farm Development: Project Developer
Wind energy capacity in the U.S. grew by 8,358 MW last year, an impressive 50 percent jump in total capacity. This trend was accompanied by a 35 percent increase in jobs in the industry. Unlike trends in many industries, career opportunities are expected to expand, as wind power plays a key role in President Obama’s goal of doubling renewable energy production within three years, renewable portfolio standards are met, and stimulus funding is utilized.
Currently about 7 million households are powered by wind energy and 85,000 people were employed by the wind energy industry, up from 50,000 the previous year, according to the American Wind Energy Association. These jobs are very diverse, and include turbine manufacturing, wind farm development, wind farm construction, and turbine maintenance.
Developing an industrial-scale wind farm requires a team of people with a variety of abilities. This seven part series will examine the skills needed achieve this feat. The first job we will explore in this series is project developer.
Corporate Response to Climate Change Consistent Despite Economy
As the Copenhagen climate talks approach, the opportunities and liabilities around climate change are evident
Despite the economic climate, corporate response to climate change has grown slightly from 2008 to 2009. Numerous organizations are using emission reduction goals as an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the competition, lower costs, and lure investors.
“There’s an increase in companies that are seeing opportunities instead of risk around climate change,” says Sonal Mahida, Vice President of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). “We are seeing this trend globally.” Excelling in the area of climate change mitigation can offer a strategic edge.
“The global recession has provided good opportunities for companies to recover consumer trust and investors’ confidence by reducing their climate change impact,” says Mark Robertson, Communications and Development Manager, Experts in Responsible Investment Solutions (EIRIS). “The economic downturn brings a number of risks and opportunities. There are risks associated with near-frozen capital markets as well as uncertainty and opportunities linked to government stimulus packages focused on energy efficiency, cleaner technologies, renewable energies, taxation, and forest protection.”
Exelon Leaves Chamber of Commerce Over Climate Change
As a sign of growing corporate support to climate change legislation, a string of companies have left the chamber in recent weeks. Exelon, one of the largest utilities in the US and the third to leave the Chamber, made the announcement Monday.
The Chicago-based company sells electricity and gas in four states and is the largest national operator of nuclear power plants. Exelon plans to spend $290 million each year for five years on energy efficiency and demand response programs. John W. Rowe, Exelon Chairman and CEO urges climate change legislation that puts a price on carbon.
“The carbon-based free lunch is over. But while we can’t fix our climate problems for free, the price signal sent through a cap-and-trade system will drive low-carbon investments in the most inexpensive and efficient way possible,” says Rowe. “Putting a price on carbon is essential, because it will force us to do the cheapest things, like energy efficiency, first.”
Who Will Lead the Electric Car Market?
The outlook for the electric car couldn’t have looked brighter when oil was priced at $140 a barrel, consumer confidence was high, and offers of credit were plentiful. Now that a variety of electric vehicles are nearly ready to hit the market in larger quantities, the world is a different place. The leading manufacturers of the electric car and its ability to compete with evolving hybrid technology have yet to be determined.
Electric vehicle sales will surely benefit from higher fossil fuel costs and governmental incentives. A large upfront investment must be made to produce the volume of vehicles needed to reduce manufacturing costs and create a vehicle-charging infrastructure. Geography and culture will impact which countries can accept the smaller range of most electric vehicles and who can afford to purchase one. Technology advancements will dictate the range of vehicles in the future and the speed at which they can charge.
Labor Market Dynamics: Recession Impacts Men More Than Women
Many of the industries that have been hardest hit by the economic crisis are male dominated. Construction and manufacturing are two prime examples.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 247,000 jobs were lost in the US during July, including 76,000 construction and 52,000 manufacturing jobs.
The male unemployment rate is now 9.8%, while the female rate is 7.5% in the US. This trend is also seen in parts of Europe, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, and Denmark.
As some male dominated industries lose jobs, some female dominated industries have gained jobs. In the health care industry, 81% of the workers are female. During July, 20,000 jobs were gained in this industry.
SolFocus Designs CPV Solar Panels for Commercial Scale Deployment
Concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) is not a new technology, but commercial utilization is. In the past, panels demonstrated high efficiency in the laboratory, but were not designed for manufacturability. Since SolFocus was founded in 2005, the company has taken a different approach to this technology.
“We have designed our product for manufacturability,” says Nancy Hartsoch, VP of Marketing for SolFocus. “Otherwise, we will end up with an expensive lab experiment.”
SolFocus recently announced raising over $77 million in Series C funding. This will help the company ramp up production to commercial scale production, something that they have had in mind from the beginning.
T. Boone Pickens to Sell Off 667 Wind Turbines
As part of the first phase to build a 4,000 MW wind farm in the Texas panhandle, Pickens ordered 667 turbines from GE. These turbines are to be ready in 2010 and 2011, but the wind farm was called off due to funding and transmission problems. Now that’s a boondoggle.
The economy and the wind energy market were very different just over a year ago when this order was placed. The wind industry was booming and a massive 8,900 MW of wind energy capacity was installed in 2008 in North America – this represents 40% of all total new capacity. Steel prices were sky high and demand greatly exceeded turbine supply. Prices soared and it was difficult to buy small quantities of turbines.
GE, Waste Management and Google: Fortune 500 Companies Working With Renewables
Many people have the misconception that the renewable energy field is comprised largely of little start-ups. In reality, many of the heavy hitters in the industry are large, established companies, such as General Electric, Google, and Waste Management.
Let’s examine the niches these organizations occupy in the emerging green energy economy.
General Electric:
2008 Revenue: $176.6 billion
GE’s energy division is a global leader in power generation technologies and the nation’s biggest provider of power plant turbines. With $29.3 billion in revenue last year, the firm is involved in many different types of energy, including coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind and biogas. GE has about 50 percent of the US wind turbine market share, totaling more than 12,000 MW of installed capacity.
Xerox : How Green is Your Print Job?
“Waste-free products from waste-free facilities”
The zero waste vision has been gaining steam lately. One of the most important strategies for this involves designing products and factories that don’t have large amounts of waste created in the manufacturing, use, and disposal of the product. Since 1991, Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) has made significant progress in this area, often reducing waste by 90%.
Design for Reuse
The invention of interchangeable parts helped fuel the industrial revolution. The same concept can also greatly expands the end-of-use possibilities for products.
Instead of recycling parts, the many parts are cleaned, inspected, and put back to use. Products are designed with fewer parts and can be easily dissembled. According to Xerox, “A returned machine can be rebuilt as the same model through remanufacture, converted to a new model within the same product family, or used as a source of parts for next-generation models.”
Each part is built to last for numerous product life cycles and 70%-90% (of the products weight) is reused to make new products. This innovation requires forethought. Product families are designed with a core set of components that are used throughout.
The program has saved over 2 million pounds of waste from landfills. Remanufacturing is even better than recycling, because waste such as water and energy is also eliminated by not processing the materials.
Recession to Reduce Summer Electricity Demand
Demand is likely to be reduced by 2%, back to 2006 levels, according to a recent report by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. “The economic recession has contributed to an overall reduction in the (forecast) demand for electricity this summer, leading to higher reserve margins across North America for the season,” said Mark Lauby, NERC’s director of reliability assessments.
4 Worst Business Sectors on the Environment
At a time when consumer trust is very low, companies will need to earn trust to thrive. An extensive study by Havas Media, the Sustainability Framework 09, examines which sectors are perceived to have the lowest environmental and social performance.
This study of 20,000 consumers was completed early this year in 10 markets and spanned more than 50 brands in 8 sectors. This thorough study has provided numerous insights that provide extremely valuable to businesses across the globe. One such nugget is how different sectors are viewed regarding overall corporate social responsibility.
The Four Sectors with the Lowest Perceived Environmental and Social Performance Are:
5 Strategies to Green Any Job
You can’t beat the satisfaction of making the world a cleaner, more pristine place. For this reason, more and more people want green jobs. The more President Obama talks about them, the better they sound. In reality, many of us can have a tremendous impact, without working for a wildlife reserve or a solar energy company.
Here are some ways to green your existing job:
Start a Game
People love competitions, even if it is ultimately for a mundane goal. What department can reduce their electricity use the most or have the largest number of employees commute by bike? How can you replace bottled water consumption with filtered tap water?
“We have people here in our offices that are creating contests around printing,” said Matt Arnold, Partner, Pricewaterhouse Coopers in an interview with TriplePundit. “Think about how day-to-day this can get. We are having a contest to see who can print the least, floor by floor, department by department. We are keeping score and it’s a little game. The people that designed it are having a blast and we’re reducing paper consumption.”
US Solar Market Had Record Growth in 2008 Despite Economy
Despite the credit crisis, 2008 will be remembered in the solar industry as a year where federal incentives were enhanced and extended for eight years. This ends the boom and bust cycles that have plagued the industry for decades.
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