by jboullion | Sep 30, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a news release issued by the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association:
The Dairy Business Association (DBA) is proud to announce that Five Star Dairy, LLC of Elk Mound, Wisconsin was selected to receive the 2010 DBA Environmental Excellence Award. This award was developed to recognize a Wisconsin dairy producer in honor of its outstanding waste and pollution prevention projects that protect Wisconsin’s natural resources.
Five Star Dairy, LLC (along with Dairyland Power and Stargest Power, LLC) constructed a thermophylic complete mix digester. The digester uses methane and other byproducts to generate electricity and provide power for approximately 600 homes in the Elk Mound area. Lee Jensen, General Manager of Five Star Dairy, also installed a lagoon cover so that the manure lagoon can work as a digester in the future. In addition, the cover keeps 1.5 million gallons of rain water out of the lagoon. As a result, less fuel is needed to spread the manure and incorporate nutrients into the soil. This project is the first successful thermophylic complete mix digester with a separate substrate tank for agriculture use.
“Wisconsin dairy producers are committed to environmental excellence through their everyday efforts on today’s dairy farms,” said Laurie Fischer, DBA Executive Director. “We are proud to recognize Five Star Dairy for its innovation and leadership in generating electricity with agricultural byproducts and going above and beyond to protect our environment and natural resources.”
by jboullion | Sep 30, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a commentary by Steve Hiniker, executive director of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
With anti-rail activists whipped into a frenzy over threats that passenger rail services pose to Wisconsin and the state’s finances, it’s time to step back and take a closer look. Are rail opponents onto something, or are they on something?
Rail opponents rail against the cost of rail. They would like to have the money for rail either returned to Washington or spent on highways. Dream on. The $810 million is a part of a larger plan to restore intercity passenger rail across the United States. This is a federal project that won’t be derailed by Wisconsin politics. Restoring rail is expensive, but transportation projects are expensive. The Zoo Interchange will cost more than $2 billion to reconstruct. The Marquette Interchange was close to $1 billion. Where’s the outrage over that spending?
In any case, the money can’t be spent on highways, and even if it was sent back to Washington, it would be reallocated to another state to build their rail system – leaving Wisconsin in the dust. (We also would be sending millions of our tax dollars to another state to build rail instead of us getting the hundreds of millions from other states.)
The core of rail opponents’ argument seems to focus on the $54 question: Can we afford the annual operations costs of the added service? Those annual costs will amount to around $6 million a year. That amounts to one-fifth of one cent of our gas tax. So when a driver fills up with 20 gallons of gasoline at $2.70 per gallon, the bill will comes to $54. Just .04 (yes, 4 cents) out of that $54 will go to pay for intercity rail.
Their argument also assumes that there are absolutely no benefits associated with the 4-cent investment that comes with a $54 purchase. It assumes that no one will benefit from jobs created to build the service. That no one will benefit from the development that occurs around rail stations. And that no one will benefit from being able to relax rather than fight traffic on the interstate.
Opponents also like to say that the train fares will be unaffordable. According to the state Department of Transportation, one-way fares will be between $20 and $30 for the ride from Madison to Milwaukee. Compare that to the cost of driving. Using federal reimbursement rates for mileage, driving the 78 miles between Madison and Milwaukee costs $39. That means taking rail saves between $9 and $19 each trip. It saves a lot more for someone in Madison taking the train to Mitchell International Airport to catch a flight due to the saved costs of parking. And it will boost traffic at Mitchell.
It seems like there’s a lot of rage over just 4 cents out of every $54.
by jboullion | Sep 28, 2010 | Uncategorized
Visit homes and businesses around the state to see renewable energy up close. In addition to showcasing solar and wind power, houses will feature energy efficiency, green building techniques, and sustainable living ideas. Speak with home and business owners and find out how renewable energy works for them. Self selected driving tours will be available throughout the state.
Tours are FREE and open to the public between 10 am and 4 pm. To view the locations and details of the sites in your area, go to http://www.the-mrea.org/solartour.php.
The Wisconsin solar tours are part of the National Solar Tours of the American Solar Energy Society that are happening in states across the country on the same day.
by jboullion | Sep 28, 2010 | Uncategorized
Visit homes and businesses around the state to see renewable energy up close. In addition to showcasing solar and wind power, houses will feature energy efficiency, green building techniques, and sustainable living ideas. Speak with home and business owners and find out how renewable energy works for them. Self selected driving tours will be available throughout the state.
Tours are FREE and open to the public between 10 am and 4 pm. To view the locations and details of the sites in your area, go to http://www.the-mrea.org/solartour.php.
The Wisconsin solar tours are part of the National Solar Tours of the American Solar Energy Society that are happening in states across the country on the same day.
by jboullion | Sep 28, 2010 | Uncategorized
Commentary
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
September 27, 2010
One of the abiding pleasures of my job at RENEW Wisconsin is going out into the field to visit renewable energy installations. Many of the systems sprouting across the state owe their existence to state and federal policies that make these systems economically viable to their owners.
In turn, some of those policies owe their existence to RENEW, an advocacy organization that has elevated the Wisconsin renewable energy marketplace from a dreamy aspiration to a thriving marketplace employing hundreds of people and generating millions of dollars a year in local revenues.
Whenever I’m asked to describe our mission, I often say that we act as a catalyst for advancing a sustainable energy future in Wisconsin. Our vision of that future places small, entrepreneurial companies at the center of the transition toward clean, locally available energy resources that do not deplete over time.
RENEW endeavors to steer Wisconsin along this path through policy mechanisms that help renewable energy businesses establish themselves in an economy that for many decades has operated almost exclusively on fossil energy. Because of that dependence on concentrated energy sources like coal, natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons, which are still priced very cheaply, the shift to renewable energy has been an uphill battle. The incumbent energy sources are well-entrenched and will not hesitate to expend significant political capital to block policy initiatives aimed at putting renewable energy on a more equal playing field. Continued . . .
by jboullion | Sep 28, 2010 | Uncategorized
Commentary
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
September 27, 2010
One of the abiding pleasures of my job at RENEW Wisconsin is going out into the field to visit renewable energy installations. Many of the systems sprouting across the state owe their existence to state and federal policies that make these systems economically viable to their owners.
In turn, some of those policies owe their existence to RENEW, an advocacy organization that has elevated the Wisconsin renewable energy marketplace from a dreamy aspiration to a thriving marketplace employing hundreds of people and generating millions of dollars a year in local revenues.
Whenever I’m asked to describe our mission, I often say that we act as a catalyst for advancing a sustainable energy future in Wisconsin. Our vision of that future places small, entrepreneurial companies at the center of the transition toward clean, locally available energy resources that do not deplete over time.
RENEW endeavors to steer Wisconsin along this path through policy mechanisms that help renewable energy businesses establish themselves in an economy that for many decades has operated almost exclusively on fossil energy. Because of that dependence on concentrated energy sources like coal, natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons, which are still priced very cheaply, the shift to renewable energy has been an uphill battle. The incumbent energy sources are well-entrenched and will not hesitate to expend significant political capital to block policy initiatives aimed at putting renewable energy on a more equal playing field.
At RENEW’s urging, the State of Wisconsin has taken a few measured policy steps to carve out some room for renewable energy. The most important of these initiatives is a statewide incentives program (Focus on Energy) for small-scale renewable energy systems. Though most of Focus on Energy’s budget is set aside for energy conservation and efficiency, about $10 million a year is reserved for customer-sited renewable energy systems such as solar hot water, solar electric, biogas, biomass heating, and small wind.
This program, coupled with several voluntary utility initiatives, has elevated Wisconsin into a regional showcase for renewable energy systems serving dairy farms, cattle farms, orchards, greenhouses, breweries, cheese producers, corporate campuses, apartment buildings, municipal wastewater facilities, schools and technical colleges, and manufacturers.
The policy seeds planted 10 years ago are yielding an impressive crop of installations this year, broadly distributed throughout the state. As important as these policies are, however, these systems don’t get built unless someone decides to spend dollars today to receive a decades-long supply of energy tomorrow. We at RENEW would like to give a shout-out to the owners and installers of this year’s bumper crop of home-grown renewable energy, including:
The City of Evansville, for hosting a 100 kilowatt (kW) Northwind turbine to serve its wastewater treatment plant. Installer: H &H Solar, Madison.
Stonehouse Development, for building two Green Built apartment houses in the Madison area, each with 60 kilowatts of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems and solar water heating systems. Installers: Full Spectrum Solar, Madison (PV); Cardinal Solar, Sun Prairie, solar hot water.
Random Lake School District, for hosting a 50 kW Endurance wind turbine on the high school grounds. Installer: Kettle View Renewable Energy, Random Lake.
Fountain Prairie Inn and Farms, in Columbia County, for hosting a 50 kW Endurance wind turbine to serve its sustainable family farm. Installer: Seventh Generation Energy Systems, Madison.
SCA Tissue, Menasha, for hosting four 20 kW Renewegy wind turbines at one of its facilities. Manufacturer and installer: Renewegy, Oshkosh.
Milwaukee Area Technical College, for building the state’s largest PV system, to be used as a training center. The system is rated at 540 kW. Contractor: Johnson Controls, Milwaukee; Installer: Pieper Power, Milwaukee.
Montchevré-Betin, Belmont, a producer of goat cheese, for upgrading its wastewater treatment capacity with an anaerobic digester and 335 kW generator. Contractor: Procorp, Milwaukee. System owner: Clear Horizons, Milwaukee.
I urge the citizens of Wisconsin to go out and see for themselves how fertile the territory is here for home-grown renewable energy. As you observe these installations out in the landscape, delivering clean energy year after year to the local area, you begin to appreciate the totality of benefits that these systems yield. If you talk to system owners or installers, you will feel their passion and soak in the positive energy that comes from being part of this growing community. They are, along with the installations themselves, the most persuasive advocates for extending and strengthening Wisconsin’s clean energy policies. They not only represent today’s jobs and business opportunities, but also tomorrow’s hope.
