A Permanent Boston Public Market
Boston needs a permanent public market and now there is a coordinated campaign to make it happen. An impressive list of entrepreneurs, businesspeople, government officials, farmers, and community leaders have all come together to form a coalition that is building a grassroots campaign to send the message to our elected leaders.…
The Governor’s Clean Energy Challenge
Deval Patrick launched the Governor’s Clean Energy Challenge in March of 2009, pushing for businesses across Massachusetts to reduce their CO2 emissions by 10% over the following three years. The response and willingness of local businesses to meet Patrick’s challenge provides encouraging data for continued emissions reductions; after the first year of the program, participating organizations have already reduced CO2 emissions by a total 9.24%.…
Want a comprehensive Climate Change/Clean Energy bill?
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a national non-profit of citizens and scientists for environmental solutions based in Harvard Square, have cleanly outlined several concrete actions for you to take to meet those ends.…
Home Star Dunner
Alas, attention to the administration’s Home Star/Cash for Caulkers program has waxed and waned since it first appeared last fall, and this component of a stimulus package meant to address the nation’s energy issues, and aid the (then) ailing construction industry has languished in the shadows, until it finally passed the House in May.…
Google and Green Energy
This week, a blog post by Google announced that the company plans to enact a power purchase agreement to get enough energy to power several of its facilities. The deal will include a purchase of 114 megawatts of power from the NextEra Energy Resources wind farm in Iowa.…
Mass Renewables Redux
This time last year we reported that a state law requiring heating oil to contain a paltry 2% biodiesel was finally being enforced. Alas, once again, implementation has been delayed.
Although Cape Wind gets most of the press, it is not the only contentious wind project in the Bay State.…
$18.5 Million for New England Energy Projects
On Monday, the DOE announced a $18.5 million grant will be dispersed via the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) amongst various energy research labs and companies throughout New England. The funds are part of the larger $349 million Recovery Act funding pool and will be used primarily for energy efficiency projects; specifically in this case, solid state lighting using gallium nitride, air conditioning efficiency, chemical flow batteries, and overall energy storage capacity research.…
EIA finds cost of bill to address global warming is low
A story from Greenwire in the New York Times summarizes the findings of the Energy Information Administration’s report on the costs of implementing the Kerry-Lieberman energy bill. It concludes that in a middle of the road scenario, adoption of the bill would result in a (basis point) reduction of GDP1 by 2‰ (2 thousandths) over more than two decades of growth.…




