Recommendations for a Cleaner, Greener Energy Future

Key policy recommendations for a Cleaner, Greener Energy Future include:

* Providing multiyear tax incentives for renewable-energy production and energy-efficiency projects.

* Setting national mandates that would require utilities to get at least 20 percent of their electricity from wind, solar and geothermal energy by 2020.

* Adding and updating the building code to require energy-efficiency measures in the construction of new buildings and the renovation of existing buildings, and setting a goal to reduce buildings' energy use 50 percent by 2030.

* Setting prices for carbon-dioxide emissions and creating a program that caps emissions from different industries and allowing companies to trade emissions allowances.

* Upgrading and expanding the nation's electric grid to enable it to support electric cars and the transport and storage of renewable energy.

* Providing incentives for utilities to invest in energy-efficiency technologies.

* Increasing the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks and investing more money in private-public partnerships that would develop transportation systems that rely on little or no oil, such as electric cars.

* Providing incentives to consumers and small businesses to buy plug-in hybrid cars and alternative fuels, including natural-gas-powered cars.

* Investing more federal dollars in cleantech research and development, including ways to capture and store carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.

* Speeding up the process of setting aside public lands and improving the permitting process for renewable-electricity projects on public lands.

* Shifting from ethanol made from corn to ethanol made from wood chips, agricultural waste and other nonfood feedstock, and encouraging a joint U.S.-Brazil partnership to turn sugar cane into ethanol in the Caribbean.

Green Collar Job Education Comes to DC!

Area Builders Bring Nation's First Green Job Curriculum to District of Columbia

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Councilmember At-Large Kwame Brown today joined the Green Builders Council of DC (http://www.builditgreendc.org), a coalition of more than 30 local builders and developers, to unveil the nation's first green collar job training curriculum for the Washington, DC area construction industry.

The curriculum will train current construction workers, plus Career and Technical Education students entering the District's construction trades programs, in environmentally-sensitive construction methods and green building rating systems as certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's ( http://www.usgbc.org) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard.

Thanks in part to the leadership of the members of the Green Builders Council of DC more than 100 buildings in the District, totaling over 120 million square feet, are already LEED certified. Including planned projects, members of the Green Builders Council will be responsible for more than 200 million square feet of LEED certified construction in the District. Upon successful completion of this curriculum, students will earn industry-recognized credentials that can help them gain employment at these and other green building projects across the District.

"The demand for District residents who can fill green collar jobs is only expected to grow. Now DC workers and Career and Technical Education students will be able to gain a valuable skill set that will benefit their careers and our city's green future," said Mayor Fenty.

"Now, when people ask me what a green collar job is, I can point to specifics. This training will lead to important results: A greener, more sustainable city and the jobs that go with it," said Councilmember Brown. "The District is looking ahead to the future, and we're fortunate to have partners who want to bring hope to our young people."

"Mayor Fenty and the City Council have been longtime advocates of initiatives that create jobs and promote a more sustainable city. Today, the private sector is proud to do its part," said Ted Trabue, director of the Green Builders Council of DC. "With this first-of-its-kind curriculum we're not just empowering District workers to take advantage of the green jobs of tomorrow, we're helping to grow this city's green economy and paving the way for other green collar workers across the country."

Specifically, the curriculum will train workers and students to be proficient in:
-- Recognizing the challenges that construction presents to the environment;
-- Understanding the life cycle phases of a building and their impacts on the environment;
-- Identifying eco-friendly alternatives to conventional building practices and understanding the costs and benefits of those alternatives, and;
-- Understanding the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating process and being able to apply construction practices that contribute to a building's LEED rating.

The new curriculum is the product of a partnership between the Green Builders Council of DC and the Florida-based National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) ( http://www.nccer.org/). The Green Builders Council of DC and NCCER commissioned the Sustainable Facilities and Infrastructure Research Team of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction at Virginia Tech University ( http://www.mlsoc.vt.edu/) to develop the curriculum. An updated version will be prepared in the coming months to train workers in the U.S. Green Building Council's revised LEED standards for 2009.

The curriculum has been endorsed by the U.S. Green Building Council as well as Green Advantage ( http://www.greenadvantage.org/), an organization providing environmental certification for construction trades workers who demonstrate knowledge of current green building principles, materials, and techniques.

The training curriculum will be taught by NCCER-accredited training sponsors, including the Academy of Construction & Design at Cardozo Senior High School in Northwest.

The local builders and developers who are members of the Green Builders Council of DC have been leaders in green building and green jobs in the DC area for years. Their member firms have constructed over 100 projects totaling more than 120 million square feet that are certified LEED buildings and currently employ over 450 workers who are accredited by LEED as experts in environmentally friendly construction. George Hawkins, director of the DC Department of Environment, recently praised the Green Builders' Council of DC for "leading the charge on the business side of greening this great District."

http://www.builditgreendc.org

Great Promise Ahead for Cellulosic Ethanol in America

Great promise lies ahead for Cellulosic Ethanol

Last December, Congress amended the national Renewable Fuel Standard, setting a goal that the U.S. will produce a whopping 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2022. It's no surprise that much of this renewable fuel will be ethanol.

Given the rapid industrialization of Asia, global demand for fuel ethanol is steeply increasing and is expected to do so in the foreseeable future. In order to satisfy this big demand, let alone meet the Renewable Fuel Standard, there is a growing concern that the standard U.S. practice of mass producing fuel ethanol from corn won't be feasible. There simply isn't enough corn acreage available in America to meet the future domestic and international demands for fuel ethanol.

Scientists contend that the answer to this problem is cellulosic ethanol, a technology that is now under furious research and development at many universities, national labs, and private industries across the globe.

This is an interesting technology, because it makes ethanol from cellulose feedstocks such as ordinary trees, perennial grass and cropland residues instead of food crops such as corn or sugar cane.

Scientists contend that cellulosic ethanol, once it is perfected, can significantly reduce America's imports of foreign oil, while creating a big variety of "green collar" jobs including farmers, truck drivers, business professionals, engineers, and scientists.

Before cellulosic ethanol becomes a commercial reality, there are many technology hurdles to overcome. Crop scientists and chemical engineers are furiously studying the genetics, the molecular structure, and other biological aspects of trees and plants in order to improve the efficiency of cellulosic ethanol production.

Last year, our country embarked on a once-in-a-generation effort to study the underlying science needed to improve processing efficiency. In the meantime, scientists are making great headway. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded $125 million to establish the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a partnership between Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin, to study the science of processing cellulosic ethanol.

Also, Michigan State University and Michigan Technological University recently partnered with the Mascoma Corp. (a Massachusetts company), to build a cellulosic ethanol plant in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

Last May, at a scientific lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark, by Dr. Niels Lagvad of Danish Biogasol Corp. (www.biogasol.com). It was revealed that this company now has a proven, turnkey system to mass produce ethanol from a big range of perennial grasses and hemicellulosic feedstocks. He referred to the process as a "bolt-on, second-generation ethanol plant" which, in essence, attaches to the back end of a conventional plant making ethanol from food crops. "Second generation ethanol" refers to the use of non-food feedstocks to make ethanol, whereas, "first generation ethanol" refers to traditional methods that use food crops such as corn and sugar cane.

The immediate U.S. market for this Danish technology is to retrofit American corn-to-ethanol plants. In this concept, corn stover (corn leaves, stalks, and cobs) and distillers' grain (a voluminous, natural by-product of the corn-to-ethanol process) would be used as inexpensive feedstocks for ethanol production. The technology is now in the demonstration phase; a full-scale plant is planned for 2010 in Boardman, Ore., as part of a joint effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Pacific Ethanol Corp.

Danish Biogasol also markets the same technology to electric power plants, regardless of whether the electric plant is fueled by coal, nuclear, natural gas or oil. Why this terrific market? Electric plants routinely produce massive amounts of waste heat. This waste heat is harnessed by the ethanol plant, which in turn greatly reduces the cost of ethanol processing. Imagine a line of semi-trucks, all loaded with massive bales of locally grown perennial grass, driving to the local electric plant - which makes fuel ethanol too.

I am excited to imagine where this technology is headed because America is blessed with abundant trees and native grass. I believe we're in for some hopeful times ahead: new jobs from locally made auto fuel with no imported oil.