Post from Dept. of Energy Blog

Taking a Tour of Wilmington's Energy-Efficient Spaces

February 28, 2012 - 11:30am

Roya Stanley (left) on a tour of the Snipes Academy of Arts and Design with the building's architect -- Thomas Hughes. Through interactive real-time energy data tools, Snipes students incorporate energy use data in their classroom projects and studies. | Photo Courtesy of the Cape Fear Green Building Alliance.

Roya Stanley

Director, Policy and Technical Assistance

I
n Wilmington, North Carolina, local institutions are leading the way in building efficiency and sustainability. From the WAVE Transit Forden Station to the Wilmington Convention Center to the city’s street sweeper complex, Wilmington is saving money by saving energy and supporting job growth in energy efficiency technologies. 
 


Last week, I experienced first-hand how Wilmington public buildings are leveraging energy efficiency and clean energy technologies to save money and reduce energy waste. I joined Representative Mike McIntyre, Mayor Bill Saffo and Joy Allen, executive director of the Cape Fear Green Building Alliance, on a tour of the city’s energy efficient buildings. 
 


At the Forden Station -- the first LEED Gold registered public building to break ground in the state of North Carolina -- on-site geothermal heating and cooling systems have helped reduce energy consumption by 45 percent. Snipes Academy of Arts and Design utilizes a water source heat pump system and outside air system for the school’s heating and cooling. Through interactive real-time energy data tools, Snipes students incorporate energy use data in their classroom projects and studies. 
 


Reducing energy waste in buildings is an important element for a sustainable energy future. In the United States, buildings consume about 40 percent of all U.S. energy, contributing a significant amount to overall energy costs. In Wilmington, the Cape Fear Green Building Alliance is helping train local energy auditors and building analysts to conduct energy efficiency upgrades and capture the savings. 
 


Nationally, through the Better Buildings Challenge, more than 60 companies, cities, universities, hospitals and other partners have committed to upgrading more than 1.6 billion square feet of building space across the country -- which will jobs, eliminate waste and help make our commercial and industrial buildings 20 percent more efficient by 2020. 



Check out more on the Better Buildings Challenge HERE.

America's Next Top Energy Innovator, Round 2

News release from the U.S. Department of Energy:

Secretary Chu Announces Second Round of “America’s Next Top Energy Innovator” on One Year Anniversary of the White House Startup America Initiative

January 31, 2012 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, on the one year anniversary of the Obama Administration’s Startup America Initiative, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) is kicking off a second year of “America’s Next Top Energy Innovator,” a program that allows startup companies to license groundbreaking technologies developed by DOE’s 17 national laboratories for $1,000 and build successful businesses. As part of this effort, the Department reduces both the cost and paperwork requirements for startup companies to obtain an option agreement to license some of the 15,000 patents and patent applications held by the national laboratories.

The White House Startup America Initiative is a multiagency effort across the Obama Administration to promote high-growth entrepreneurship by expanding access to capital, cutting red tape, and accelerating innovation through agency action.  Additional information on the program’s one year anniversary and new steps the Obama Administration is taking to support job-creating small businesses is available HERE.

“America's future competitiveness depends on our ability to innovate and advance American products and businesses,” said Energy Secretary Chu. “Through America’s Next Top Energy Innovator, we are allowing brilliant ideas to fully develop and giving startup companies the opportunity to bring inventions from our national laboratories to the market.”

Under the previous round of America’s Next Top Energy Innovator, thirty-six companies in total signed option agreements with the national laboratories.  An online contest for the top picks is currently underway, where Americans can vote online for the most innovative and promising technologies supported by the program by visiting www.energy.gov/topinnovator. The top startup companies– based on the public vote and an expert review – will be invited to be featured at the premier annual gathering of clean energy investors and innovators around the country, the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit at the end of February.

Under the next round of the “America’s Next Top Energy Innovator” program:

1.      Wednesday, February 1, 2011, the Department will kick off the second round of the competition.  Entrepreneurs and start-ups must identify the technology of interest and submit a business plan to be considered for the program. Participants will have until December 10, 2012 to make their submission to the laboratory.
2.      Any of the 15,000 unlicensed patents and patent applications held by the national laboratories will be available for licensing by startup companies.
3.      From February 1 to December 10, the Department will reduce the total upfront cost of licensing DOE patents in a specific technology to a $1,000 upfront fee for portfolios of up to three patents from a single laboratory. This represents a savings of $10,000 to $50,000 on average in upfront fees.
4.      Other license terms, such as equity and royalties, will be negotiated on a case by case basis and will typically be due once the company grows and achieves commercial sales. These fees help support the Department's continuing research activities to develop new technologies.
5.      The Department has simplified the option and licensing process and has established a standard set of terms for start-ups, who generally lack the resources, time or expertise to negotiate individual licensing agreements.
6.      In early 2013, the Department will give Americans the chance to vote online for the most innovative and promising technologies supported by the program.

Learn more about DOE’s America’s Next Top Energy Innovator program HERE. Learn more about the Obama Administration’s Startup America initiative HERE.

White House Releases More E-Mails on Solyndra

The New York Times

Saturday, January 14, 2012

White House Releases More E-Mails on Solyndra

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — The White House has given House Republican investigators an additional 66 pages of internal correspondence relating to Solyndra, the solar equipment manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy after accepting a $535 million loan guarantee, and the e-mails reflect significant anxiety about the poor financial prospects of the administration’s flagship choice to demonstrate how federal help could add to building a clean energy economy.

But the new documents do not appear to support the Republicans’ contention that the White House steered the loan guarantee to Solyndra, a company whose investors included an Obama campaign donor.

In one e-mail, dated Oct. 27, 2010, Heather R. Zichal, the deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, told Carol M. Browner, the White House’s chief staff member on climate change: “Solyndra is going to announce that they are laying off 200 of their 1,200 workers. No es bueno.”

That announcement was postponed until the day after the midterm elections of Nov. 2, 2010, apparently at the urging of the Department of Energy. The newly released material, which was given to The New York Times by a government official, does not comment on the timing or include evidence to support the contention of some Republicans that the delay was requested by the White House.

Two days after the Oct. 27 e-mail, Ms. Zichal responded to one from Joe Aldy, then the special assistant to the president for energy and environment, who said, “Not a good start for the first closed loan guarantee.”

The e-mails and other documents were supplied to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which has held several hearings on Solyndra. The Republicans leading the committee and subcommittee, Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan and Cliff Stearns of Florida, respectively, said in a statement that the White House had released only a “handful” of documents and reiterated the charge that the loan guarantee process was “tainted by stimulus politics from the outset.”

The committee also announced on Thursday that it was also seeking documents from SAIC, the parent company of a consulting firm that the Energy Department hired to evaluate Solyndra, and the Government Services Administration, which operates office buildings.

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Dozens of Power Plants Closing

The following is an excerpt from an article by The Hill.  I am not sure that imposing tough new environmental regulations in a fragile economy with high unemployment is the smartest thing that we could be doing as a nation. But no one asked me for my opinion.

Dozens of Power Plants Closing Due to New EPA Rules

December 21, 2011

The Hill

BRIAN KOENIG

Due to new federal air pollution regulations, more than 32 power plants across the country will be forced to close their doors, according to a recent Associated Press survey. Those plants, which are mostly coal-fired, discharge enough electricity to supply more than 22 million households, the survey notes, and their closure will lead to job layoffs, depleted tax revenues, and a considerable hike in electric bills. The areas that will be hit hardest are the Midwest and in the coal belt (Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky), where dozens of plants will likely be retired.

Two regulations are in question: One aims to curb air pollution in states downwind from pollutant-heavy power plants; and the second, which was finalized last week, would enact the first standards for mercury, acid gas, and other pollutants from plant smokestacks. In total, the new regulations could eliminate more than eight percent of coal-fired generation nationwide.

AP’s survey, the first of its kind, looked at the analyses by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of plant retirements and interviewed 55 power plant operators about the effects on power supply and about their plans to deal with the new regulations.

Basing their assertions on energy analyses, congressional reports, and government regulators, critics have predicted that the new EPA regulations will lead to widespread blackouts, and possibly the retirement of coal as a power source altogether. However, proponents of the rules claim that those studies inflate closure numbers by considering plants shutting down for reasons other than the EPA’s new restrictions.