Scituate turbine talks off to slow start

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent

December 5, 2012

Boston Globe

After more than two months of discussions, neiighbors and the owners of Scituate’s industrial wind turbine have made little progress in settling their differences.

Neighbors have been meeting with Board of Health officials since late September, rallying against the turbine after the structure allegedly started causing health problems to many nearby residents.

Although the Board of Health has formed a Steering Committee consisting of neighbors, turbine owners, and town officials, and despite meetings in October, November, and December, the turbine has kept spinning and discussions within the Steering Committee have been slow going.

“Not withstanding that two members of the Board of Health acknowledged that there is evidence to suggest there is an issue, there has been nothing [done] besides a Steering Committee commissioned,” said Tom Thompson, a spokesperson for the community group. “In the meantime, families like the McKeevers are experiencing health issues….I don’t see how anyone in the community can be pleased with that level of progress.”

The McKeever family, which lives on the Driftway, have even published YouTube videos showing the shadow flicker – a strobe-like effect caused by the blades spinning in sunlight – in their home.

Elsewhere in Scituate, residents have submitted dozens of complaints to the Board of Health, saying that the turbine is causing sleeplessness, dizziness, and headaches.

To get to the bottom of the issue, Board of Health officials plan to commission a study to look at the noise and shadow flicker effects on the neighborhood, to be paid for by the turbine owners.

The scope of that study, and the parameters of the engineering company, will be determined by the recently formed Steering Committee.

However, the Steering Committee has yet to meet, and residents remain frustrated that nothing concrete has been accomplished.

“I don’t think there has been any progress made thus far,” Thompson said.

Issues surrounding the Open Meeting Law had to first be figured out before the group could meet. Additionally scheduling issues with the Director of Health, Jennifer Sullivan, has caused some delays, Thompson said.

“As the head of the staff, she has a significant role, and it makes sense that her inability to attend these meetings or make herself available would have a negative impact on pace,” Thompson said.

Yet according to Gordon Dean, owner of the turbine, the delays in meeting are mostly the fault of the community.

"We’ve tried to be responsive," Dean said. "[At the Monday meeting], Mr. Thompson took responsibility for the fact that there hadn’t been a meeting and nothing presented at this point in time. He said it is on their shoulders. He said he would check at the end of this week how their consultant is doing. …we are waiting. We can't control it if they don’t want to sit down until they have heard from their consultant."

Furthermore, Dean said the Board of Health had been cautious up to this point, which he supported.

Despite delays, the community group hopes to meet before Christmas.

In preparation for that meeting, the community group is forming their scope of work for a potential study, a document that should be ready next week. Dean said that his side has presented possible scopes from consulting firms he had approached to get an initial cost estimate.

The Department of Environmental Protections has also provided the town with a scope of study that is currently taking place in Fairhaven.

"DEP suggested that if town is thinking of using [the study] for enforcement that the final scope should be reviewd by the DEP," Dean said.

At this point, the hope is to finalize a scope of work within the month to put a request for proposal out to bid at the start of the year.

“We would like to have a formal meeting of the Steering Committee to hopefully agree on a scope to be presented to the Board of Health,” Thompson said. “We know the [Board of Health’s] next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 7 and hopefully at that time they will agree on a scope and it will be issued to engineering firms…and we will determine t that time what the next steps are.”

Though there may soon be decisions about what a study will focus on, funding for the study has yet to be determined.

Dean agreed to fund a study looking at the noise of the turbine, but has had yet to publicly say whether Scituate Wind LLC would fund a study including shadow flicker.

Despite this hang-up, Thompson said he isn’t concerned.

“Clearly the issues in play relate to noise and shadow flicker, any engineering study commissioned by the town needs to reflect both of those nuances, or it's not an all encompassing study,” he said.

Yet Dean said a study of shadow flicker had already taken place, and it isn't clear how flicker may play a role in the latest study.

"We’ve already paid for a shadow flicker study, and we don’t understand what people are asking for," Dean said. "It’s an easy mathematical thing based on the sun and the turbine…we just don’t understand what people are suggesting we do differently, so we’re waiting to get a neighborhood proposal on flicker."

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/scituate/2012/12/scituate_turbine_talks_off_to.html

Will crowdfunding solar projects work?

Sylvie Barak

10/3/2012 6:41 PM EDT

It’s an Indian summer here in San Francisco, so what better time for some good news about solar energy?

Mosaic, an online marketplace connecting investors to solar projects, announced it has come up with funding for its 6th large solar project in rather unusual fashion… by crowdsourcing it, Kickstarter style.

Mosaic’s latest project, a 47 kW solar installation on the roof of the Youth Employment Partnership (YEP) in Oakland was funded in less than a week by members of the general public donating micro amounts through the click of a mouse button.

The concept may sound novel, but it is not new.

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter launched in April, 2009,  revolutionizing investment, turning the internet into an online hub for raising money in small increments from the general public in support of a cause, product or project. Suddenly, backing startups wasn’t just for VCs, it was for everyman (and woman).

Kickstarter’s business grew rapidly from inception. In 2010 the website had 3,910 successful projects, $27,638,318 pledged, and a project success rate of 43 percent. In 2011, the corresponding figures were 11,836, $99,344,381 and 46 percent. The success spawned a string of copycats, the latest of which is Mosaic with its mass funded solar projects.

The success of opening the investment up to the online masses surprised even Mosaic itself.

“The speed at which we were able raise the $40k to fully fund the YEP project gives us hope that our new model will grow into a significant source of solar financing while offering great returns for investors,” said Mosaic’s President Billy Parish.

During Mosaic's first phase, hundreds of people invested more than $350,000 at zero-interest to finance five rooftop solar power plants in California and Arizona.

All of the first five projects went online and Mosaic said some investors had already received back the full amount they put in.



The beneficiaries of these early projects included People’s Grocery, a food justice organization in Oakland, CA and 18,000 homes without electricity on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.

The solar installations are predicted to save community organizations over $600,000 on utility bills, which is nothing to sniff at.



To make its effort more long term, Mosaic has also submitted an application to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to offer Solar Power Notes to the public, with those proceeds going to fund other solar projects.

The firm said thousands of people have signed up to be notified when that initiative launches.

Currently, around 25 percent of the price of solar installations comes down to financing and customer acquisition costs, or soft costs. By crowdfunding a project, Mosaic says it can reduce these soft costs while enabling millions of Americans to own a piece of the clean energy economy.

“Our mission is to create shared prosperity through clean energy” said Mosaic’s CEO Dan Rosen. “We see a huge opportunity in transitioning our world to clean energy, and we want to make it possible for people and communities to prosper and be a part of this massive transformation.”

Combined, Mosaic’s first five projects are said to have created 73kW of solar energy and produced over 2,700 job hours for local laborers.

The firm was also recently awarded $2M from the U.S. Department of Energy and raised another $3.4M from venture capitalists to bring its clean energy marketplace to scale.

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/other/4397804/Will-crowdfunding-solar-projects-work--

Sports Rally Around Green Projects

By KEN BELSON

New York Times

Published: October 25, 2011

AMERICAN sports are often an exercise in excess: fans consume large quantities of beer and hot dogs, stadiums with giant scoreboards and retractable roofs are surrounded by parking lots filled with thousands of cars. In many ways, they represent the broadest cross-section of consumer culture and America’s wasteful ways.

But the sports industry — from teams to leagues to stadium and track operators — is becoming more environmentally friendly. In just the last few years, several new arenas have been certified by the United States Green Building Council, and nearly a dozen other facilities have added solar panels. Teams like Seattle and St. Louis have ambitious energy-saving programs at their parks, and the United States Open tennis tournament composts a majority of its waste. Even Nascar, a sport built on gas-guzzling racecars, has introduced a program that includes the recycling of used tires, oily rags and more.

Like many businesses, team owners and event organizers realize that going green can save thousands and even millions of dollars a year, a priority in these recession-stretched times. But many of them are also generating new income from their cost-cutting measures by getting corporate partners, eager to align themselves with hometown teams going green, to sponsor projects like solar installations and recycling bins.

In the process, teams and event organizers are learning that environmental efforts are winning fans not just in the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest, but in less obvious states.

“You would expect it out of a California team, but not an Arizona team,” said Derrick Hall, the chief executive of the Arizona Diamondbacks, which has worked with Arizona Public Service, the local utility, to build a 17,000-square-foot solar canopy at Chase Field, the baseball team’s stadium in Phoenix. “It’s important to a number of companies. They want to know what steps we are taking, and they like to be associated with us and an environmentally conscious team.”

Even though the team is not required to recycle, the Diamondbacks have added 150 new bins for plastic and aluminum bottles in Chase Field and compost all the food and paper waste, helping keep 95 tons of material out of the garbage dump in the first nine months of the year. In 2008, the team added flushless urinals and hand dryers in the bathrooms, and vendors at the stadium now wear shirts made from recycled plastic bottles. To trim its electricity bill, which is several million dollars a year, the team closes its retractable roof earlier in the day to avoid having to turn up the stadium’s air-conditioners.

Like many teams, the Diamondbacks have received no public subsidies for their initiatives. Some measures, like distributing media guides on digital thumb drives, saved thousands of dollars in printing costs. Others, including asking employees to take public transit to work, were part of broader efforts to be greener organizations.

Either way, the initiatives were done voluntarily, not because of mandates from the commissioner’s office. Major League Baseball and other leagues, though, have been sharing best practices among teams and collecting statistics on energy and water use and recycling rates to create benchmarks. The National Hockey League also helps teams send unused food at arenas to local soup kitchens, an effort that that provided 165,000 meals last season and kept 105 tons of food out of landfills. The league has also started buying credits that restore wetlands for every goal scored during the season.

Skeptics say these efforts are a bandage. Stadiums produce tons of waste and use large amounts of energy, teams crisscross the nation on chartered jets and millions of fans drive to games in millions of cars. League officials acknowledge this but say it is all the more reason to promote environmental initiatives.

“You can’t duck it or deny it,” said John McHale Jr., an executive vice president at M.L.B. “But just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you can’t do something.”

Environmental activists applaud this marriage of bottom-line vigilance and civic-mindedness, not just because huge amounts of energy, food and other products are consumed at sporting events, but because teams and athletes are so influential in their communities that fans and companies may be more inclined to follow their lead.

“When you get teams looking for efficiency, it gets noticed more than when environmental advocates do it,” said Allen Hershkowitz, the director of the Sports Greening Initiative at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which advises leagues and teams. “People expect it from us, but when it’s the Cardinals, it’s the heartland. It’s nonpolitical.”

The recent rush of projects was led off by the Boston Red Sox, which installed 28 solar panels on a roof above the first-base line in 2008. The project was modest: the panels replace about 37 percent of the natural gas needed to heat the water used at Fenway Park. Other teams took notice, though, because the Red Sox not only saved money, but relied on National Grid, the utility, for technical expertise and financing.

Suddenly, teams everywhere were unveiling green initiatives, or publicizing efforts that until then had been ad hoc and out of view. In 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis, Nascar appointed Michael Lynch as head of green innovation. In cooperation with racetrack operators and racing teams, he introduced a host of measures, including using hybrid vehicles as pace cars and the planting of 10 mature trees after every race. This year, Nascar switched to a 15 percent ethanol blend, which has attracted sponsors as well as critics who doubt its environmental benefits.

“It’s like a small-sized Midwestern town that comes together 36 times a year,” Mr. Lynch said of Nascar races. “If you want to show that something works, plug it in here.”

Race teams and track owners looking to lower their costs took the cue. Last year, the Pocono Raceway installed 40,000 solar panels on 25 acres, enough to power the entire facility. Brandon Igdalsky, the racetrack’s president, said the $15 million cost was paid without government subsidies. The track’s annual energy bill has been cut by $500,000, so Mr. Igdalsky expects to recover the cost of the panels in eight to 10 years.

“We don’t even get a bill anymore,” he said.

Many projects, though, are far smaller and less visible. When the owners of the New Jersey Devils built the Prudential Center in Newark, they spent an extra $1.5 million on a state-of-the-art dehumidifying system that let them keep the air in the arena dry and cool enough to meet the N.H.L.’s strict guidelines for maintaining the ice.

The system automated a process that has long relied on guesswork. To keep the humidity at about 30 percent for hockey, arena operators consider the temperature and moisture outside, the number of fans expected to attend and what time the game begins. They also factor in whether a basketball court or other flooring must be removed.

Teams without dehumidifiers typically run their air-conditioners early in the day at high levels to bring the temperature in the arena down to the low 60s. This offsets the heat from fans and the lights. But by turning their air-conditioners on full blast, they raise their electricity costs, because the rate that utilities charge their big commercial customers is based on the period of highest demand.

At the Prudential Center, hundreds of sensors in and outside of the arena help the Devils adjust dehumidifiers all day, eliminating the need to turn the air-conditioners on all at once.

“That’s where the energy savings come in,” said Jim Cima, the senior vice president of arena operations. Buildings without dehumidifiers, he said, “demand a lot of human judgment. They have to start their air-conditioners very early in the day and pray once the game starts that they are able to hold that temperature.”

The center’s system, Mr. Cima said, had reduced energy use by 22 percent, which in turn had reduced the payback time for the equipment to less than five years. But retrofitting arenas with dehumidifiers has proven to be costly, even in cities where lawmakers and the home team support environmental initiatives, so teams are finding other ways to cut costs.

“The one caveat is it has to make money,” said David Kells, the director of marketing at Bridgestone Arena, home of the Nashville Predators, which instead spent about $100,000 on fast-opening loading doors to cut the amount of cool air leaving the building.

The improvisation is a reminder that when it comes to green measures, one size does not fit all teams. And because sports are so widely watched, fans are likely to take note for some time to come.

“The challenges that the leagues and sports organizations face are not unique; they’re the same ones that we face at home,” said Martin Tull, the executive director of the Green Sports Alliance. “It’s easy to point the finger at the large aggregators of people. But the challenge is the use of resources in general.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/business/sports-industry-expands-its-environmental-initiatives.html?pagewanted=all

Carrotmob enforces importance of being green

Published: Saturday, December 04, 2010, 10:42 PM     Updated: Sunday, December 05, 2010, 9:21 AM

 Debra J. Groom / The Post-Standard 

Gary Walts / The Post-StandardState University College at Oswego senior Alisia Engle, 20, of Schenectady, mans a kiosk in the Campus Center building providing information about green events and living green. She is the Sustainability Intern for the department of Campus life. Michael Bonnie, director of the Oswego Center for Sustainable Living, told her about the Carrotmob project and she jumped on board to organize it in Oswego.

Oswego, NY -- A mob of college students — many wearing orange organic T-shirts — will descend onCanale’s Restaurant Monday because the business agreed to become a little greener.

The activity is part of the first Upstate New York Carrotmob, said Sarah Zisa, with Carrotmob headquarters in San Francisco.

The worldwide Carrotmob movement began in the San Francisco area as a campaign to encourage businesses to become more socially responsible while attracting customers.

In Oswego, owners and managers of 10 restaurants competed to win the mob of customers by offering to donate a certain percentage of their on “Mob” day to work on green initiatives at their locations. The one willing to do the most won the mob.

Alisia Engle, a senior at the State University College at Oswego, organized the event. She and members of her college Go Green Team visited 10 Oswego eateries and challenged the owners to be green.

“I think the definition of ‘going green’ or ‘sustainability’ is leaving the world as beautiful as we found it,” Engle said. “If everyone comes, we’ll have 100 students at Canale’s for the first Central New York Carrotmob.”

Here’s how the Oswego Carrotmob worked:

The restaurants were contacted the week of Thanksgiving and told “a group of 100 students are interested in coming to your business.”

In return for this influx of customers, the restaurant owner or manager bid what percentage of the income from the Mob event the business was willing to spend toward becoming green. They could do such things as updating their recycling or installing more energy-efficient lighting.

The restaurants competed by saying how much each was willing to do. If one decided to spend 10 percent on changes, another could up the ante by agreeing to spend 20 percent of its “Mob” income on green changes.

“The whole thing revolves around the power of consumers,” Engle said.

Canale’s restaurant, at 156 W. Utica St., won, agreeing to donate 30 percent of its income from the student “Mob” to becoming more green. The “Mob,” mostly students in the Go Green Team at Oswego State, raised money to pay for Canale’s energy audit. Canale’s owner and manager will work with the auditor to make identified changes.

Zisa said this is the first Carrotmob campaign in Upstate New York. Carrotmobs have been held in various boroughs in New York City.

Nick Canale Jr., owner of Canale’s in Oswego, said he liked the sound of the idea when it was pitched to him.

“We’ve already done a lot at the restaurant, such as changing the lighting, recycling our fryer oil, putting in programmable thermostats, buying recyclable packaging and installing motion sensors on our lights,” he said. “But this sounds great. I’d like to do more.”

Jeneen Reynolds, manager of Patz on the River, agreed.

“This is a fantastic idea and it’s for a good cause,” she said. “We already do a lot here to conserve and recycle.” But she said she and the restaurant owners are always open to doing more.

Engle, 20, became involved through her work as the sustainability intern at Oswego State. She worked on green issues at Hudson Valley Community College, but was surprised there were few efforts to teach students about the environment and related issues when she transferred to Oswego.

“Once I started learning about all this, I wanted to be just as involved here at Oswego,” she said. “The president (Deborah Stanley) is committed to going green, but there is a huge gap between the administration and the students. We have to educate the students.”

Engle began the Go Green Team, an organization of students involved in educating others about green initiatives on campus. She and the team set up the Green Kiosk in the Campus Center, that provides information on environmental issues to students. She serves as the sustainability intern for the Department of Campus Life and has served as the director of sustainability for the college’s Student Association.

Then in September, Michael Bonnie, director of the Oswego Center for Sustainable Living, contacted Engle.

“He informed me of the worldwide effort to promote green business practices, Carrotmob,” she said. “Carrotmob is a way for anyone to make a real difference with the environment by buying ordinary things in a targeted way.”

“We are proud to partner with such a large group of students to bring awareness to an important effort,” Canale said after being told his bid won the Carrotmob campaign.

“We know there is more we can do to be environmentally friendly. We are considering using the money to replace some older windows with more energy saving models, but we will wait and see what the Carrotmob auditor recommends and make our decision then,” he said.

Why the name Carrotmob?

The name of the group, Carrotmob, comes from the approach it uses to entice businesses to make social and environmental improvements to the world. The mob of people willing to support the business financially is the carrot used to encourage the business to make changes. As Carrotmob puts it, “We believe that we can get businesses to make big positive changes by offering them profits in return — the mob’s spending and customer loyalty. It’s a positive model where there are no enemies and everyone wins.”

Who competed in Oswego?

Ten Oswego-area restaurants were approached to promise a certain percentage of their Carrotmob take on making green improvements. Canale’s agreed to use the biggest percentage, so won the competition and the mob of customers. The others that competed are Azteca, Oswego Subshop, Cam’s Pizza, Port City Café and Bakery, Zonies, Vonas, Patz On the River, Fajita Grill and Raging River BBQ.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/post_329.html

HASID LUST CAUSE

CULTURE CLASH OVER SEXY CYCLISTS

By RICH CALDER

NO LOOKING: A Hasidic man averts his eyes yesterday as MariaDolores Lopez rides by on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.

Posted: 3:47 am
September 12, 2008

It's the Hasids vs. the hotties in a Brooklyn bike war.

Leaders of South Wil liamsburg's Hasidic community said yesterday that bike lanes that bring scantily clad cyclists - especially sexy women - peddling through their neighborhood are definitely not kosher.

The red-faced religious sect is calling on city officials to eliminate the car-free lanes on Wythe and Bedford avenues, and to delay construction of a new one planned for Kent Avenue.

"I have to admit, it's a major issue, women passing through here in that dress code," Simon Weisser, a member of Community Board 1 in Williamsburg-Greenpoint, told The Post.

"It bothers me, and it bothers a lot of people."

The existing, one-way lanes are popular with North Williamsburg hipsters - many who ride in shorts or skirts.

The temporary lane planned for Kent Avenue would be a precursor to a 14-mile greenway stretching from Newtown Creek in Greenpoint to Sunset Park.

Hasids are forbidden from looking at members of the opposite sex who aren't fully dressed, said local activist Isaac Abraham.

Weisser and other Hasids said during a Sept. 8 community-board meeting that the lanes on Bedford and Wythe avenues should be eliminated if the neighborhood has to accept being part of the greenway.

The issue of dress - or lack of it - wasn't brought up at the meeting. Weisser and the other Hasids instead complained publicly about bike lanes allegedly causing parking problems and traffic congestion.

Abraham later said another major concern is the safety of children, noting that cyclists "aren't obeying traffic laws. Green lights and red lights are the same."

Hasids last month complained about a sexy billboard promoting the teen drama "90210" that could be seen from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and that featured swimwear-clad characters.

A few years back, some residents complained about billboards for "Sex and the City."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09122008/news/regionalnews/hasid_lust_cause_128750.htm