Got2BeGreen

Garden and Green Space Development to Enhance Cities

2012-02-03T03:08:28Z

WASHINGTON, /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) and The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (NYSE:SMG) announced the recipients of the 2012 GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Grant Awards Program. The grants, which focus on improving our nation’s cities through the development of community gardens and green spaces, were announced at The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ 80th Winter Meeting in Washington, DC.

This year’s winning cities are:
• Baltimore - Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
• Columbia, SC - Mayor Steven Benjamin
• Cleveland - Mayor Frank Jackson
• Corpus Christi, Texas - Mayor Joe Adame
• San Francisco - Mayor Edwin Lee

“Over the last several years, The Conference has pushed for cities to develop community gardens to enhance the health and quality of life in our neighborhoods,” said Conference President Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “This new Grant Awards Program shines an important spotlight on mayoral efforts to support innovative gardens and green spaces. ”

Through a new partnership with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and ScottsMiracle-Gro, more cities across the nation will be able to enjoy the benefits of gardens and green spaces. The partnership awards grants to cities for the creation of innovative public gardens and green spaces, and recognizes mayoral stewardship in the development of urban greenscapes.

“The importance that a garden can have in a community is irrefutable,” said ScottsMiracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn. “We were inspired by the innovative ways that mayors across America are using gardens and green spaces to improve their cities. From fostering urban revitalization to developing edible gardens for its citizens, the winners of these grants truly demonstrate the power that gardens can have in a community.
“We are proud to provide support for these efforts and look forward to helping each of these cities bring their projects to life.”

The winning cities were selected by a panel of former mayors and national garden experts from a pool of more than 80 applicants. Grants, in the amount of $25,000 from ScottsMiracle-Gro, were awarded to five cities.

“Mayors understand that gardens and green spaces are important to the quality-of-life for their residents, and the Conference of Mayors, in partnership with ScottsMiracle-Gro is pleased to be able to provide grants to help them expand green spaces in their cities,” said Tom Cochran, USCM CEO and Executive Director.

2012 GRO1000 Garden and Green Space project overviews:

Baltimore
Upton Edible Garden is a new mayoral initiative to create community vegetable gardens that will serve as educational sites where residents can learn about growing and cooking healthy food. The site consists of 32 city-owned vacant lots, totaling almost three-fourths of an acre, located in the historic Upton neighborhood. The Upton neighborhood is significantly distressed, and has not yet seen a project like this devoted to producing local, healthy food.
Columbia, South Carolina
I-126/Greystone Boulevard Interchange Beautification Project will enhance the green space entrance way into the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, one of the primary gateways into the City of Columbia. Riverbanks Zoo and Garden is one of the most successful mid-sized zoos in the United States, boasting an annual attendance that ranges from 950,000 to 1.2 million visitors. The project consists of a 6,773 sq. ft. bed on the south side of the on-ramp and an adjacent area (4,250 sq. ft.) along the north side of the on-ramp. This project will offer teaching opportunities as residents, and visitors, will learn about native plants to the region and how composting aids gardening.
Cleveland
Located in Cleveland’s Lower Kinsman Neighborhood, the Urban Agriculture Innovation Zone is an innovative program that will repurpose 26-acres of vacant, formerly residential land for urban agriculture. This grant would be used to create a park to welcome visitors to the Urban Agriculture Innovation Zone and will include signage identifying the Urban Agriculture Innovation Zone, a seating area, flowerbeds and other decorative landscaping, as well as a staging area for a farmers’ market and other special events.
Corpus Christi, Texas
The Lindale Park Community Garden will feature a raised garden area with 20-8×8 plots, a turf demonstration area, as well as, rain water harvesting barrels and compost bins. The garden will be constructed in Lindale Park, located along Staples Street (a major thoroughfare). In general, the population that utilizes the park is low to middle income families and many of the children qualify for reduced or free lunch at school. Families and organizations will have an opportunity to cultivate and harvest vegetables for their own meals, as well as have the chance to share or sell their goods at the community events that take place at the park.
San Francisco
The Quesada Gardens Initiative (QGI) is an expansion project to create a new gardening education area and public gathering space with the potential for food swapping, distribution and vending. The focus on the expansion is food production and green space development. The project will take place in a diverse and traditionally underserved community. The project location is immediately adjacent to one of the city’s major transportation arteries, which is also the neighborhood’s primary commercial corridor.

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Introducing Alertors: Products That Save Lives And Natural Resources

2012-01-30T20:57:41Z

EXTON, Pa. - After one youth soccer player was killed and 29 were injured by a lightning strike on a nearby playing field in 1984, Eric Canfield, co-founder of nth Solutions, invented an extraordinary solution to an ordinary problem - he created the Storm Alert.

Fast-forward 27 years, and the more technologically-advanced 4th generation StormAlertor is now part of an entire product line being launched through Kickstarter by nth Solutions, a Pennsylvania electronics development and manufacturing startup.

Alertors detect common household problems before they become dangerous or costly. In an era where conservation is king, the LeakAlertor is a solution for the estimated 50 million leaking toilets silently wasting precious water. For the 5 million people with dementia and 25.5 million children under age 6, the Open DoorAlertor is peace of mind - detecting when a door has been opened and has been left open. FridgeAlertor lets you know when the temperature of your refrigerator has gone above 40 degrees or below 32 degrees, preventing foodborne illness and food waste. And the StormAlertor detects lightning 30 miles away, allowing time for children to be brought indoors and electronics powered down and unplugged.

Started in 2009, Kickstarter is a funding website for new ideas and projects. Supporters “back” projects and receive rewards instead of financial incentives for fully-funded projects. For more information about nth Solutions’ Kickstarter project, click here.

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Proposed Fuel Economy Rules Underestimate Rising Vehicle Cost, NADA Says

2012-01-28T21:50:26Z

DETROIT - PRNewswire-USNewswire — At a public hearing today on proposed fuel economy rules for model year 2017-2025 passenger cars and light-duty trucks, the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) urged federal agencies to properly consider the rising consumer cost of new vehicles,

“To work, fuel economy rules must require improvements that are affordable,” said New Mexico Ford dealer Don Chalmers, and chairman of NADA’s Government Relations Committee, at a joint Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) hearing in Detroit, Mich. “According to EPA and NHTSA, the cumulative cost of all of their fuel economy rules will raise the average price of a vehicle by $3,200. This is not pro-consumer.”

“While EPA and NHTSA can mandate what automakers must build, no one can dictate what customers will buy. If our customers do not purchase these products, we all lose,” Chalmers added. “NADA supports fuel economy increases as long as they take consumer demand and vehicle choice into account.”

With new auto sales rebounding from a low of 10.4 million in 2009 to 12.7 million last year, Chalmers cautioned that proposed fuel economy standards for the 2017-2025 model year could have real economic consequences if consumer demand is not fully taken into account.
“Dealers embrace the pivotal role we are playing to help lead our nation back to the road of prosperity, but we are wary of anything that might depress auto sales and turn back the gains being made,” he said.

In the testimony, Chalmers pointed out that model year 2017-2025 fuel economy rules are not even due until April 1, 2015.
“Rushing to set costly new standards nearly three years early will unnecessarily and unhelpfully forgo the opportunity to learn how consumers react to the aggressive new standards now being put into place,” Chalmers said.

Chalmers also questioned the government’s estimated $3,200 per vehicle price increase as a result of the proposed regulations. Initial analysis from new research, conducted by NADA, indicates the federal government’s estimate of $3,200 may be substantially underestimated and the actual cost to consumers may be as high as $5,000. Chalmers indicated that the study will be released in several weeks.

NADA will raise significant concerns over how the federal government calculated vehicle cost. Chalmers indicated from the initial analysis that the administration’s fuel economy proposal grossly underestimates costs and actual retail prices may increase by as much as 60 percent.

In another study to be released in the coming months, NADA will look back at the EPA’s 2002-2010 medium- and heavy-duty truck emissions mandates, revealing that the EPA underestimated the average actual compliance costs by a factor of three and that widely recognized market disruptions occurred as a result of fuel economy rules.

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EXPANDED LINE OF WOOD SMOKE POLLUTION CONTROL PRODUCTS OFFERED BY CLEARSTAK

2012-01-27T02:20:59Z

Connecticut Company Expands Product Line to meet Growing Need for Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace Particulate Reduction

Willington, Connecticut, January 24, 2012 – Users of outdoor wood furnaces and wood boilers now have additional pollution control options from industry leader ClearStak, LLC. The company has expanded its line of patent pending Pollution Control Devices (PCDs) and Intelligent Bio-fuel Controllers (IBCs) to retrofit a wider variety of outdoor wood boilers and four different sizes of pipe – up to 12” in diameter.

“Our new systems can be used for gasification and non-gasification furnaces and some utilize oxygen sensor technology to further reduce wood smoke by monitoring the burning process,” says Jeff Hallowell, ClearStak president. “Not only do these new systems reduce wood smoke and particulate emissions from wood furnaces, they can increase efficiency by over 30%, reducing the overall amount of wood needed to burn.”

ClearStak’s first patent pending proprietary intelligent catalytic unit specifically designed to retrofit hydronic heaters, the CS-100, started shipping in 2010. Since that time the units have been used on many types of indoor and outdoor furnaces including traditional, gasification, EPA non-qualified and EPA qualified. There are hundreds of our products in use in states such as Connecticut, Vermont, Indiana, Alaska, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Massachusetts and Minnesota, and even Canada. They are being used on furnaces from the most popular wood boiler manufacturers such as Central Boiler.

“Our new pollution control devices and bio-fuel controllers will allow us to better serve a wider biomass market and reduce particulate and carbon monoxide emissions in more varied types of furnaces,” says Hallowell. “We anticipate more new products this year as we roll out a new gasification emissions controller and other technology components. Plus we’re are working with several OEM manufacturers to integrate our technology in their furnace design.”

For more information about ClearStak click here or call (860) 237-8245.

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Several States Using Little-Known Fund to Jump-Start the Clean Economy

2012-01-25T00:49:13Z

Report finds that 22 states are tapping “CEFs” to build renewable energy projects. Some are going further by using the money to build entire industries.

A little-known source of clean energy funding could prove a crucial job-creation engine in the states, as federal support diminishes and they seek fresh growth drivers.

Every state can create clean energy funds, or CEFs, which are typically supported by a small surcharge on monthly electricity bills. So far 22 states have done so, generating $2.7 billion overall for the clean technology sector during the past decade. Most have used the money to install tens of thousands of solar panel arrays, wind turbines and biomass facilities.

But a few states have gone further by broadening investments to include technology research hubs, fledgling cleantech startups and green job training programs. The idea is to use the money, which today totals some $500 million a year, to help develop all the components of the clean economy and stimulate the creation of thousands of permanent local jobs.

The strategy is still experimental, but it could turn these CEFs into a major source of economic growth, according to new report published today by the Brookings Institution, a public policy group, and the Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization. The report outlines a four-part policy strategy for every state to adopt this “next generation” of CEF spending.

Clean Energy Funds were originally set up more than 10 years ago to help decarbonize state energy systems in the face of climate change. According to the report, the funds have already helped bring forward 72,000 renewable energy installations the country urgently needs.

But times have changed, said Mark Muro, a report co-author and director of policy for Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program. “Economic development has emerged as a parallel and complementary interest to carbon reduction … There’s been a sharpening concern that the country really needs to look to supporting the emergence of cutting-edge technologies” as a way to start new industries and create jobs, he told InsideClimate News.

According to the report, retooling these state-level funds “could not be timelier at this moment of federal gridlock and market uncertainty.”

Congress isn’t expected to approve new funding for green technologies in 2012 after the 2009 stimulus-which poured tens of billions of dollars into clean energy projects-dries up. And policymakers won’t likely reinstate key federal subsidies that lapsed at the end of 2011, including the Energy Department’s 1705 loan guarantee program, whose bankrolling of the now-bankrupt California solar firm Solyndra sparked a Republican-led effort to scale back President Obama’s green agenda.

“We all need to be thinking about where we are going to get policy and finance support for further economic development in clean energy,” Muro said. “As it happens, the clean energy funds are there and in a position to innovate.”

The Evolution of CEFs

The country’s first CEFs popped up in places with aggressive renewable energy goals, like California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Other states gradually followed suit, namely in the East Coast and Midwest.

They used the cash to get more solar panels on rooftops and wind turbines in the ground, which they hoped would help make renewable electricity as cheap as coal. Affordable clean power would have another benefit: it would unleash consumer demand for solar and wind, and spur new jobs in installation, manufacturing, among other areas.

But some states saw that the high cost of renewable power generation wasn’t the only obstacle to realizing the promise of the green economy. In order to build lasting cleantech industries, they’d have to subsidize research and development for new technologies, like advanced biofuels, electric vehicles and highly efficient solar panels, and eventually build a ready workforce and supply chain for manufacturing.

And so, starting a few years ago, a handful of states began experimenting with ways to transform their CEFs by linking the money to strengths in their economies.

For New York, that has meant sending some of its CEF money into its growing number of regional clusters, where high-tech companies, universities and research institutions that have similar industry focus share expertise. In 2009, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), which administers the state’s CEF and other clean energy programs, saw a chance for those regional clusters to help a rising crop of clean energy startups become viable companies.

The Clean Energy Business Incubator program has given $1.5 million from the CEF to each of six business incubators, which assist cleantech entrepreneurs in organizing, staffing and funding new businesses. Together, the incubators work with around 70 companies, whose products range from analytical tools that measure wind energy resources to energy management systems and mounting devices for solar photovoltatic installations. The money gets doled out over the course of four years as companies pass certain milestones, like completing a business plan or attracting private investments.

So far, participating companies have created several hundred new jobs, raised more than $40 million in private capital and attracted $11 million in federal funding, according to the Brookings-Rockefeller report.

“We have tremendous hopes for programs like the Clean Energy Business Incubator,” said Janet Joseph, vice president of technology and strategic planning at NYSERDA. “If these CEFs could be used to not just support [clean energy] resource acquisition, but also technology development and business development, I believe we would further accelerate the development of a clean energy industry.”

Massachusetts is also steering a chunk of its CEF dollars in this direction.

The state’s CEF was formed in 1997 mostly to finance renewable power installations and energy efficiency programs. The fund has since been absorbed by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a development agency created four years ago out of Gov. Deval Patrick’s sweeping set of green economy policies.

The bulk of the roughly $22 million that the state gets from utility bill surcharges still goes toward that original mission. But the center is increasingly capitalizing on the state’s high number of research and academic institutions and strong venture capital community to drive clean economic growth in other sectors, said Kate Plourd, a spokesperson for the Clean Energy Center. (Paragraph includes correction added on 01/12/2012.)

We really try to take this holistic approach so we’re getting [economic] benefits from all sides,” Plourd said. The goal is to support “long-term economic growth for companies that will eventually create more jobs in Massachusetts.”

Its catalyst program, for example, awards up to $40,000 in grants to researchers working on early-stage technologies, such as high-performance lithium-ion batteries used for energy storage or a process that turns algae into motor fuel. A second program provides seed venture investments of up to $500,000 for companies that are advancing a range of renewable energy technologies and tools to cut energy use and climate-changing pollution.

In total, these two CEF-funded programs in Massachusetts-along with grants to help existing companies grow-have awarded more than $8 million in equity investments, loans and grants to companies since early 2009 and lured almost $300 million in additional funds. (Paragraph includes correction added on 01/12/2012.)

State officials say the strategy is paying off. Massachusetts now employs more than 64,000 people at nearly 5,000 clean energy companies, according to the Clean Energy Center’s October 2011 green jobs count. The number of clean economy jobs jumped 6.7 percent from July 2010 to July 2011. Companies surveyed in that report expect another increase of 15.2 percent this summer compared to last year.

No research has tracked how many jobs the CEFs alone have created in the states.

A Brookings report from July 2011 found that 2.7 million Americans work in the clean economy, which spans industries ranging from natural resources conservation and wastewater treatment to renewable energy deployment and energy-efficient construction.

What’s the Hold Up?

Why aren’t other states using their CEFs for economic development?

“For the most part, this is just a relatively new idea that really needs to be explained, and the benefits of it need to be shown, said Lewis Milford, who co-authored the report and is president of the Clean Energy Group, a Vermont-based advocacy organization.

Recently, Republican-led efforts have tried to dismantle state-level green energy initiatives, such as renewable energy standards, which require utilities to get a certain percentage of power from renewable sources. Opponents say if clean energy technologies are viable they should be able to thrive in the free market without government intervention.

But when it comes to CEFs, Milford said he wasn’t aware of such partisan spats.

In fact, he sees an increasing interest from state officials who are looking to both boost their economies in the lingering recession and cushion themselves from the loss of federal clean energy subsidies. “States are looking at their own competitive advantage and asking, ‘How do we grow what we have?’” he said.

Corrections: An earlier version of this article stated that the CEF in Massachusetts was formed in 1998 and that the state spends $22 million annually in CEF money. The fund was established in 1997 and the utility bill surcharge generates $22 million on average each year, with a bulk of that going into the CEF.

The article also stated that the state’s CEF programs gave more than $20 million to companies since early 2009 and lured $17 million in additional equity investments, loans and grants. The programs have actually awarded some $8 million in equity investments, loans and grants to companies since that time and lured almost $300 million in additional funds. These corrections have been made.

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