Sustainable Development

Google to Invest $600M for Lenoir, NC Data Center Expansion

Google announced that it plans to invest another $600 million for an expansion of its data center in Lenoir, North Carolina.

Google Lenoir, NC data center

Google Lenoir, NC data center (photo – google.com)

The Lenoir data center project was announced by Google in 2007 with an initial investment of $600 million, so their total investment in Lenoir now stands at $1.2 billion.

The data center is now fully operational and already has 110 employees.

Google Data Center Operations Manager Enoch Moeller.said in a statement that when the company builds data centers, they choose sites big enough to accommodate future growth in a location where they can establish long-term commitments with the community.

Google has stated previously that it chose the Lenoir location because it offers the right combination of energy infrastructure and developable land.

The land will certainly come in handy for this latest $600 million expansion. As for the energy infrastructure – that is the real news today.

Google announced that it has managed to convince Duke Energy, which provides the power consumed by this data center, to provide a separate green tariff for companies like Google that want to purchase renewable energy.

Up to now, the problem with North Carolina’s data center cluster was that they could only be as green as Duke Energy was.

Duke has separate tariffs for home users, companies, and large-scale companies such as Google. What they will do now (if the state regulators approve it) is add one more green tariff category for companies that wish to buy power that comes from a renewable source.

Gary Demasi, Director, Global Infrastructure, Google, pointed out in a blog post the advantages of this approach where companies without the resources to directly generate clean energy on-site can use their utility company’s strength in power generation and delivery.

Google has previously published a whitepaper advocating this concept. Duke Energy will now be filing with the North Carolina Utilities Commission within the next three months. If approved, they will run a pilot test of this approach with Google for the Lenoir data center.

Paul Newton, Duke Energy state president for North Carolina, said the proposed renewable rate plan would help companies such as Google to enhance their sustainability efforts and boost the use of renewable energy in North Carolina.

Google has sunk a billion dollars into alternative energy ventures that can provide wind and solar power, and some of that may end up being actually used by Google in Lenoir if Duke decides to purchase renewable energy.

Grundfos Breaks Ground on North American HQ in Downers Grove, IL

Last year in Nov, the world’s largest water pump manufacturer Grundfos has announced plans to move its North American headquarters from Olathe, Kansas to just outside Chicago in Downers Grove, Illinois.

Grundfos groundbreaking

Grundfos groundbreaking (photo – grundfos.us)

Today, the Danish company broke ground on their headquarters, with Downers Grove Mayor Martin Tully and IL Gov. Pat Quinn joining Grundfos executives kicking off construction with sledgehammers to bring down a wall in the existing structure on-site.

Grundfos North America president Jes Munk Hansen said the main reason they were relocating their headquarters was because the Chicago area was emerging as a key water industry hub, and that was not just because it provided access to the Great Lakes.

Hansen said the state had proven its commitment to upgrading water infrastructure, and specifically cited the $1 billion Clean Water Initiative. He said the company hopes to play a major role in developing more water initiatives in Illinois and the rest of the country.

Downers Grove was selected as the location within Illinois because it provides easy access to the airport, and places the headquarters close to the company’s customers and other water industry companies.

Grundfos did not ask for any incentives for the headquarters relocation. They will be moving a handful of key employees from the existing headquarters in Kansas, and 40 new jobs will be created at the Downers Grove headquarters over the next few years.

Grundfos plans to seek LEED certification for the new 10,871-square-foot headquarters in Downers Grove, Illinois. They expect to focus the resources of the Aurora Water Utility Center launched last year to develop energy-efficient pumping products for the waste water market.

Hansen said that despite local-government budget woes, they were confident infrastructure spending would take off soon, and added that they were looking at the investments in Illinois and their dedication to the North American municipal water market as a long-term strategy.

Grundfos already employs around 100 people in Illinois at its waste-water pump manufacturing operation in Aurora and an office in Chicago. The company has around 1,300 employees spread across operations in six U.S. states, in addition to operations in Canada and Mexico.

In fact, the close relationship the company has developed with Illinois may help it gain business in Mexico too. Andrew Warrington, president of Grundfos Chicago, was part of Gov. Quinn’s delegation accompanying him on last week’s trade mission to Mexico, where they were pitched to the Mexico City Water Company and the country’s National Water Commission as an Illinois company.

Grundfos has 18,000 employees around the world producing and selling 16 million pumps annually, and generates $4 billion in annual revenue.

Hawaii Offers $200K to Federal Facility for Zero Waste Conversion

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie was at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center (ARS-PBARC) in Hilo to present the facility with a $200,000 check from the state Agriculture Department.

Gov.Neil Abercrombie at PBARC event

Gov.Neil Abercrombie at PBARC event (photo – HI Governor’s Office)

This unusual sight of a state official awarding funds to a federal facility underlines the value of the program in question – a sustainable zero waste conversion project that has the capability to turn unmarketable papaya into high protein animal feed and biofuels.

The system was developed by PBARC in partnership with BioTork Hawaii LLC, which is based in Gainesville, Florida. PBARC has already invested more than a million dollars into the project.

The $200,000 state investment is meant for use in shifting the program from the lab to a pilot project and then towards commercialized production.

With this investment, the State of Hawaii’s Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC) joins PBARC and BioTork Hawaii LLC as a venture partner for the global export of this conversion technology, where a microbial strain was able to break down papaya culls into oil and animal feed in 14 days in a heterotrophic process which does not require sunlight.

Tom Lyons, chief science officer of BioTork, explained that papaya culls were used for the project because of its large-scale availability in Hawaii. He added that the objective was to demonstrate that the same approach will work on all industrial and agricultural by-products to create high protein meals for animals along with renewable energy in the form of biofuels.

Apart from the pilot project, PBARC is also working on developing a number of different microbial strains that can convert specific industrial and agricultural waste products.

Gov. Abercrombie said this technological capability would give Hawaii an edge in feed research and biofuels. Local farmers would be able to convert waste into additional revenue, and at the same time reduce Hawaii’s dependence on fossil fuels and animal feed imported from the mainland.

Papaya farmers and others who use huge amounts of unmarketable tropical foods directly as feedstock will improve their bottomlines by using this technology or selling the feedstock to others who do. Apart from this direct local impact, initial estimates suggest that full-scale export of this technology will create another 1,000 new jobs in Hawaii.

The technological impact on a nationwide level could be huge if PBARC can successfully scale the project up to sustainable and large-scale commercial production. The U.S. produces 20 million metric tons worth of culled produce, which the PBARC-Biotork technology could convert into 1.7 billion gallons of renewable lipids.

Norwalk Kicks Off Innovative Energy Efficiency Program in Connecticut

A shopping plaza in Norwalk, Connecticut announcing a $285,000 lighting upgrade to improve energy efficiency is good news, but not really that big a deal to attract Governor Dannel P. Malloy, his Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Daniel C. Esty, and the State Senator for Norwalk Bob Duff.

C-PACE

C-PACE (photo – c-pace.com)

What makes this particular project special is that it is the first one to be financed under the state’s new C-PACE program. That stands for Commercial & Industrial Property Assessed Clean Energy.

The concept is simple – A business can get financing for qualified renewable energy and energy efficiency improvement projects, and get the project done with little or no upfront investment from their own pockets.

They can pay it back over time through a voluntary assessment on their property tax. After factoring in the utility bill savings from the energy efficiency project, it’s safe to say that most businesses will end up with a net savings.

For example, the Norwalk shopping plaza which has undertaken a $285,000 lighting upgrade will be saving $17,500 per year in reduced electricity costs. The company that manages the property is also planning to get additional C-PACE financing for a 100KW solar project for the site.

They estimate the reduction in their energy bill and the tax credit from the solar project will combine to reduce their total lighting cost by 60 percent. The aforementioned lighting upgrade accounts for another 30 percent reduction, for a total 90 percent reduction in the company’s lighting costs for the building’s exterior.

Gov. Malloy said use of tools such as C-PACE can make energy cheaper, cleaner and more reliable. DEEP Commissioner Esty said that financing innovations were just as critical as technological innovations.

C-PACE is administered by the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA), which is supposedly the nation’s first “Green Bank” and was established as a quasi-public agency in July 2011 with a mandate to leverage public and private funds for clean energy deployment projects in Connecticut.

Since the financing it provides to businesses is secured by a property lien, CEFIA is able to raise low-interest funding from the private sector, and does not need government funding.

Apart from Norwalk, 16 other towns and cities in Connecticut have already authorized C-PACE financing. Find out more at c-pace.com.

Canada Deserts UN Desertification Convention

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), established in 1994 after the first Rio Earth summit, is the only global binding agreement which explicitly links development and the environment to sustainable land management.

World Day to Combat Desertification

World Day to Combat Desertification (photo – unccd.int)

Its 195 signatories include all 194 nations of the UN and the EU. This includes Canada for now, but maybe not for long, because the Canadian government has informed the UNCCD they are pulling out of the agreement.

This makes Canada the only nation in the world not to be a part of the UNCCD. The ostensible reason given was that the UNCCD is a “talkfest” which spends only 18 percent of its $15 million budget on programs, while 75 percent is spent on administrative expenses.

This U.S. State Dept audit does indeed show serious funding and human resource problems at the UNCCD.

However, this is the second previously ratified environmental UN agreement which this Canadian government has backed out of. Back in 2011, Canada became the first country to have withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol after having previously ratified it.

The UNCCD agreement was similarly ratified by Canada in 1995, and has now been withdrawn in 2013.

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has already paid the UNCCD its 2012 commitment of $350,000, and says it will honor its 2013 commitment of $315,000 since the UNCCD requires a one-year notice if a member wants to withdraw.

Some of the more interesting reactions to Canada’s decision to withdraw from the UNCCD:-

“He’s making us a rogue nation. The North Korea of environmental law.” – Canadian Green Party Leader and MP Elizabeth May.

“We are sorry to see Canada go . . . it is regrettable. We don’t know why it happened, we will dig deeper now.” – UNCCD official in Bonn

“They make Bush look like a treehugger” – former UK diplomat

“Vainglorious nose-thumbing at the international community’s efforts to tame a very present threat to hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest and most desperate people.” – Robert Fowler, former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations.

World Day to Combat Desertification is on June 17, 2013. This year’s theme is drought and water scarcity, and the slogan is “Don’t let our future dry up.”

ConAgra Sustainable Development Projects Saved $22M

Last week, Omaha, Nebraska-based ConAgra Foods, Inc., (NYSE: CAG) honored employee teams from their various plants with awards for sustainable development.

ConAgra Foods

ConAgra Foods (photo – conagrafoods.com)

The company apparently received 90 entries for their annual sustainability awards competition.

While only six of them went on to win an award, none of them lost per se, because the projects are collectively responsible for:-

- Creating savings worth $22 million;

- Reducing use of packaging material by three million pounds;

- Conserving 646 million gallons of water;

- Reducing the company’s carbon footprint by 26,700 metric tons; and

- Cutting down on 23,000 tons of landfill waste.

Listed below are the six winning teams and their sustainability projects.

Rensselaer, Indiana – This ConAgra popcorn facility won the award for improved energy efficiency achieved through grassroots engagement by employees. They managed to cut back on electricity consumption by 920,647 kilowatt hours.

Memphis, Tennessee – This ConAgra Wesson Oil facility motivated employees to do their part for water conservation, resulting in employee projects that reduced water consumption by 169 million gallons.

Helm, California – This ConAgra tomato paste facility came up with new technology that separated vines and seeds from the rest of the tomato. Their efforts ended up increasing the fiber obtained from the same amount of produce, while reducing the plant’s waste by 20 percent.

Oakland, California – This ConAgra flour mill successfully introduced a pilot program for new flour bags that reduced packaging material use b 417,000 pounds.

Omaha, Nebraska – This ConAgra Research, Quality and Innovation team simplified the ingredients required for sauces, which reduced inbound transportation and handling needs, and also produced a 23 percent drop in customer complaints.

Kennewick, Washington – This ConAgra Lamb Weston team for agricultural services is working with its potato suppliers to introduce sustainable farming methods. These collaborations between farmers and Lamb Weston accounted for 150,000 acres of sustainable agriculture land use last year.

The six winning teams each gets $5,000 which can be used for a sustainable community development project. ConAgra has been holding this annual internal sustainability competition since 1992.

Gail Tavill, vice president, Sustainable Development, ConAgra Foods, said that these projects reflect an “ongoing evolution of ownership and commitment at every level in the company, further integrating sustainability into how we do business every day.”

International Scientists Redefine Sustainable Development Goals

One of the main outcomes at Rio+20 was that members states agreed to get started on coming up with a set of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expiring in 2015.

This process to develop the SDGs just got kick-started with a paper published in Nature journal by a group of scientists attending a UN conference in New York on the same subject.

The paper, titled “Sustainable development goals for people and planet” has 10 co-authors including lead author Prof. David Griggs, director of the Monash Sustainability Institute; and Johan Rockström, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center.

A keynote presentation on the paper was made at the UN conference by Prof. Griggs. The authors claim the established way of looking at sustainable development in terms of the three pillars of economic, environmental and social gains is outdated and flawed for today’s reality.

“We argue that it is more beneficial, and indeed necessary, to think of these pillars as concentric circles – economy within society within the environment,” said Prof. Griggs.

SDGs redefined

SDGs redefined (photo – stockholmresilience.org)

The six new SDGs they propose are:-

1. Thriving lives and livelihoods;

2. Sustainable food security;

3. Secure sustainable water;

4. Universal clean energy;

5. Healthy and productive ecosystems; and

6. Governance for sustainable societies.

They say while the MDGs have helped in some ways (such as halving the number of people living on less than a dollar per day), they are not going to be so useful going forward due to inherent conflicts.

For example, economic progress is made without regard to its environmental impact, while measures to safeguard the environment are opposed as detrimental to the economy.

The twin goals behind the six new SDGs outlined in the paper are to eradicate poverty and keep intact the planet’s life-support system, while eliminating the aforementioned conflicts between the MDGs.

Dr. Mark Stafford Smith, one of the co-authors of the paper and science director of CSIRO’s climate adaptation research program in Australia, said that the SDGs they have proposed have the potential to help the world transition to a sustainable lifestyle while safeguarding all the human development gains achieved in the last 20 years.

Chattanooga Helps Global Green Lighting Bring Back Production from China

Global Green Lighting (GGL) announced plans to create 250 jobs for their new radio-controlled LED street lamp assembly facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Global Green Lighting

Global Green Lighting (photo – tn.gov)

GCL currently subcontracts their production to a company in China.

The company was able to set up the hi-tech plant and is now creating jobs because the City of Chattanooga took the initiative to support the company and provide the required infrastructure for testing GCL’s innovative and energy-efficient street lamps.

A couple of years ago, the city deployed a 1 gigabit per second fiber network offering high speed internet to every home and business. This fiber network in turn set the stage for GCL to offer its radio-controlled LED lights, which can reduce energy usage by 70 percent as compared to traditional street lights.

The kicker was that GCL’s radio control system further reduces maintenance costs. The LED lights send back information about malfunctions within 15 seconds, and can be monitored for energy usage. They can be controlled remotely to brighten or dim the lights as required. They reduce light pollution, and the life expectancy of each LED light is five times greater than the old lights.

The smart grid metering, reduced maintenance costs and lower energy consumption promised to provide Chattanooga with savings of around 75-80 percent of the operational costs for street lighting.

The city and GCL ran a successful public pilot test by installing 350 of the radio-controlled LED lights in a public park. Now Chattanooga has offered GCL an $18.1 million contract to replace 26,500 lights all over the city.

Once the lights have been replaced, the city will save $2.7 million per year, which means the new system will have paid for itself in seven years. Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield praised GGL as an example of how the city’s tech infrastructure is helping create jobs and fostering innovation.

To deal with Chattanooga’s order and prepare for future growth (the company has initiated discussions with 26 cities), GCL has decided to hire 40 people right away. They plan to increase the workforce to 100 by the end of the year, and hire another 50 employees for maintenance, customer service and for sales and marketing.

“We are thrilled to execute our first community-wide street lighting project in our home city of Chattanooga,” said Don Lepard, president and CEO of GCL. “Following Chattanooga’s introduction of America’s first community-wide fiber optic network, the city has continued to raise its stature as a smart grid city and haven for innovation.”

Chicago Launches Urban Farming Network

The City of Chicago, Illinois and urban farming organization Growing Power have teamed up to launch “Farmers for Chicago,” an urban farming network that aims to bring local and organic fresh produce to food deserts in the city.

Growing Power

Growing Power (photo – growingpower.org)

Under this incubator program, the City will provide city-owned lots for urban farming, and will work with non-profits to train people and set up the equipment required.

Up to five acres of city land will be allocated for the program, which will also help grow the supply chain by assisting 25 people in getting started with a retail food enterprise such as grocery chains, farmers’ markets and restaurants.

In the first three-year period, the Farmers for Chicago initiative aims to set up localized food networks in neighborhoods which currently do not get fresh produce.

Up to 20 prospective urban farmers will get the city lots, equipment and the training for growing food, packaging it and then distributing it to through the network’s aforementioned 25 retailers.

Growing Home and other non-profits have already started providing training to residents having trouble with gainful employment in chosen areas. Apart from the City of Chicago, the non-profits are getting support for this program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“I am excited that the City is partnering up with the community on such an important initiative,” said Erika Allen, executive director of Growing Power. “Our new pipeline will take Chicago’s local food sector to the next level.”

Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Growing Power opened its Chicago Projects Office in Feb 2002, and aims to bring together otherwise dispersed food related activities to an urban farm as a community development project to address food security, public health, employment, job training and other development issues.

As per their website, Growing Power has four existing urban farm sites in Chicago, including one at Grant Park and another one on Iron Street where the Farmers for Chicago trainees will be provided space and taught necessary skills to build hoop houses, develop compost, and learn business aspects such as retail sales and creating a business plan.

Growing Home’s Wood Street farm project grew 13,000 pounds of certified organic produce in 2011 which generated more than $45,000 in income. Apart from the five acres the city is bringing in, there are already another 15 acres being used or about to be used as urban farm sites.

The City has been providing $750,000 in annual support for jobs created by non-profit projects related to urban agriculture. One is a beekeeping project called Beeline Beauty Products. Another one called Neighbor Carts takes fresh produce to areas that are food deserts.

The City’s support helps train 200 residents and provide job placement for 160 trainees. Some of these are homeless or released convicts who would otherwise be hard put to integrate themselves back into society as productive citizens.

SEIA Solar Market Insight Report – CA, AZ Top States for Solar Installations

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released its annual U.S. Solar Market Insight Review for 2012, which shows the U.S. installed 3,313 megawatts (MW) of solar photovoltaics (PV) in 2012.

SEIA report - California solar installations

SEIA report – California solar installations (photo – seia.org)

At the state level, California became the first state ever to rack up 1,000 MW worth of installations in a single year.

The market size of the U.S. solar industry grew 34 percent from $8.6 billion in 2011 to $11.5 billion in 2012.

As of the end of 2012, there were 7,221 MW of PV and 546 MW of concentrating solar power (CSP) online in the U.S.  – enough to power 1.2 million homes.

“There were 16 million solar panels installed in the U.S. last year – more than 2 panels per second of the work day – and every one of these panels was bolted down by a member of the U.S. workforce,” said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of SEIA. “We’ve brought more new solar online in 2012 than in the three prior years combined.

Resch noted that this sustained growth is enabling the solar industry to create thousands of good jobs and to provide clean, affordable energy for more families, businesses, utilities, and the military than ever before.

“This growth simply would not have occurred without consistent, long-term policies that have helped to ensure a stable business environment for this country’s 5,600 solar companies – many of them small businesses,” added Resch.

SEIA and GTM Research, which jointly produced this report, expect the growth to continue into 2013 and beyond. For this year, the report forecasts 4,300 MW of new PV installations, up 29 percent over 2012, and 946 MW of concentrating solar power.

At the state level, California became the first state to install over 1,000 MW in one year. Arizona came in as the second largest market, led by large-scale utility installations, while New Jersey experienced growth in the state’s non-residential market.

“One thing is for sure: Arizona has earned its title as our nation’s ‘Solar Capital,’” said AZ Governor Jan Brewer. “Thanks to our pro-business policies, year-round sunshine and highly-trained workforce, Arizona continues to climb as a national and global leader in solar manufacturing and technology.”

The top 10 largest state solar markets in 2012 were:-

Top 10 solar states

Top 10 solar states (photo – seia.org)

1. California – 1,033 MW

2. Arizona – 710 MW

3. New Jersey – 415 MW

4. Nevada – 198 MW

5. North Carolina – 132 MW

6. Massachusetts – 129 MW

7. Hawaii – 109 MW

8. Maryland – 74 MW

9. Texas – 64 MW

10. New York – 60 MW

Read the full Solar Market Insight Report at seia.org.

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