Thanksgiving to New Year 2014 - a time for Sustainable Green Celebrations

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Thanksgiving is now over and we quickly move to Christmas Holidays and Welcoming the New Year 2014.
 when you look back we are thankful that the Hurricane season spared the worst for people living along the Ocean front communities.

We are thankful for the largest growth in Solar PV Renewable energy installations in America and rest of the World. New York State plans to install $500 million dollars worth of solar PV in 2014.

We are excited about the prospects of New York leading the Green Projects as the State supports the use of Green fuels such as BioCNG or RNG in transportation sector.

We look forward to communities partnering with Farm businesses to convert cow manure and food waste into bio-gas and converting this gas in to Compressed natural gas for use on Trucks and fleets with huge savings by replacing diesel fuel and cleaning the air.

The holiday lighting will see lot more use of LED lights that saves money and lasts a lot longer.

Well! Green is now more accepted as we point out the monetary savings and mention environmental benefits as frosting on the cake for the conservative thinkers.

Better days are ahead. Let us celebrate what has been achieved and seek higher levels of success in building sustainable Green Communities and gain Energy Independence.

Happy Holidays!

Biofuel is a better choice for excess biogas at Farms

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The auto fuel cost is reaching new highs just like our hot weather sets new records.
At the same time natural gas prices are subject to surplus supply and keeping it low.
The sustainable green solution for the dairy farms is to build the digesters and process their manure and some imported food processing waste.This concept will generate more biogas and result in larger power generation potential. Once the amount of power produced equals the usage at farm, they are energy independent. It is not economically attractive to make excess power.This scenario offers perfect opportunity to compress the excess gas and convert it to bio-CNG for vehicle fuel which offers better returns. Unfortunately this option requires large capital expense, so many smaller farms need to combine their excess gas for centralized cleaning and biofuel production. County Governments can play a key role in this area by providing low cost long term loans to help in construction. All of their public works vehicle would benefit with low cost fuel after conversion to CNG fuel.
DOE can and should help implement this option in all counties that have large number of dairy farms.
This is the time for our Federal and State Governments to take the lead and help utilize this great opportunity for dairy waste to be converted to biofuel.

Help the Farmers - "Carrots are better than Stick"

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I read a report from Sierra club addressing the environmental issues in Finger Lakes area. They stated that larger farms called CAFO's raise thousands of animals and contain huge amounts of manure stored in lagoons.Conventional approach to address potential issue of pollution is to hire more Government employees to monitor these farms and fine them for violations.
What could be a Greener approach that can provide better results?
These farms are agribusinesses that create jobs and help local economy. Why not ask the existing government agencies to work together and help them implement renewable energy generation system that can convert manure waste into bio-gas and power generation. For example in New York State- the Empire State development and County Industrial Development Agencies could work with Environmental Facilities Corporation(EFC) and seek the Revolving loan funds for Anaerobic Digester project implementation.The loan gets repaid from the savings in energy costs and waste gets treated so it does not smell or cause pollution. This would be the carrot approach.
Which one is better? Any comments?
Ram

Energy Independent Farms and Sustainable Communities

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The thought of National and State debts going up scares me, from our future point of view. What are we giving to the next generation? Our dependence on oil and military interventions to protect oil are costly and too much money is leaving the country giving us trade deficits.

Let us focus on Green Solutions and stop spending borrowed money.
How do produce value at home and keep the money in our local economy? The answer is to think of sustainable green strategies and help develop local businesses. Invest in conservation, finance long term green power generation systems.

New York States is fortunate to have a very large agricultural business base. Many rural Counties have large number of dairy farms, Fruits and vegetable farms which supports the local economy. Most farms have large land areas and potential for wind energy, solar energy and biomass energy. These farms can become an economic engine for the local community if the Community Leaders decide to invest in long term strategy of renewable energy development at these farms. Local green jobs and availability of local grown food with improved environment are key benefits.

As the Nations invests in Green infrastructure we should focus on helping these farms become economically stable, energy independent and provider of green power and bio fuels. There is GOLD waiting to be extracted in this Green Sector.

Energy Independent Farms with Green Technology

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The New Year brings new opportunity for New York State Farmers, with help from grants and incentives to produce Green Energy. New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced a new program to provide financial incentives to generate power from Digester bio-gas.

Farm industry in New York, represents a very large economic and employment sector. All of these farms face environmental and energy cost issues. Now is the time to take advantage of these incentives and start the journey to be Energy Independent. The good news is that the energy generation system can be implemented with grants, incentives for green energy and cost of energy saved via on site generation. It will provide increased profits immediately by becoming more energy efficient and producing green power.

New York State Wins by generating power from biomass and Farmer wins by reducing the operating costs and sustaining as a business to retain and create new jobs. We should get the word out to local farmers to not miss this opportunity.