by jboullion | Feb 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by KJ Lang in the La Crosse Tribune:
People don’t often think of food as recyclable, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student Jessica Kotnour noted.
“It’s really easy to recycle the nutrients in our foods, but oftentimes food waste just gets discarded,” she said.
Food waste makes up about 10 percent of material in landfills in Wisconsin, according to a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources-commissioned study in 2002.
But UW-L students no longer contribute to that waste. Student this semester now dump fruit and vegetable scraps into compost buckets to later be used for landscaping on university grounds.
Students started the program in the university’s dining hall with a $3,000 grant from the UW System’s Solid Waste Research Program, which is funded by a state tipping fee on landfilled waste. These grants funded nine other student solid waste research projects in 2009-10, including another at UW-L to cut down plastic water bottle usage, said Eileen Norby, UW System Solid Waste Research Program manager. . . .
UW-L started a program about a year ago to have cooks compost scraps from food preparation. Combined with the food waste collected after meals, UW-L generates nearly 1,000 pounds of food waste a week for composting.
by jboullion | Feb 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a blog post on BizTimes by Robert Mariano, chairman and chief executive officer of Roundy’s Supermarkets Inc. in Milwaukee, co-written by Dick Hansen, president and CEO of Johnson Financial Group Inc., Racine:
On behalf of the nearly 7,400 employees we represent, we wish to express the important role regional transportation plays in our economic future. We are committed to ensuring dedicated funding for a balanced regional transit system and encouraging our business colleagues to do the same.
We represent two of southeastern Wisconsin’s largest institutions and provide critical services to thousands of local residents on a daily basis. We understand that a fully-funded transit infrastructure impacts our clients, customers, business, and the economic climate in southeastern Wisconsin. We have hundreds of employees that use buses to get to work every day, however that number continues to decrease as the bus system disintegrates. Continued cuts to the system impair our employees’ ability to get to work and our clients’ and customers’ ability to get critical services and products.
We hope it is clear that we understand firsthand how transit affects our larger community as well as our specific organizations, and we are committed to working with the Legislature to see that a politically and economically sound funding source for transit is implemented in our region during this session.
We are issuing a call to action for our representatives in Madison. We need a truly regional, multi-county, multi-modal regional transit authority including Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee Counties to be immediately focused on improving bus transit throughout the region and advancing the KRM commuter rail project. We must have a dedicated funding mechanism for transit, which must provide property tax relief, restore routes and rescind fare increases to allow for efficient and effective bus operations throughout the region to allow for economic development and regional growth.
by jboullion | Feb 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
Students visit a Madison Gas and Electric wind farm near Green Bay:
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This farm field trip has nothing to do with cows or horses. Each year, Kewaunee County students visit a very different kind of farm… the Rosiere Wind Farm.
In this story, see how students react to the giant structures and hear why teachers think the visit is full of important lessons.
by jboullion | Feb 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Wayne Nelson in BusinessNorth:
The legislature and Gov. James Doyle used federal stimulus money to offset one-third of the budget shortfall, he said. The remaining deficit was offset with spending cuts and new taxes.
“Without the federal stimulus money, we would have had to shut down the (UW) campuses,” he said.
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on lawmakers in both states to help create private sector jobs, and reduce unemployment. In Wisconsin, the emerging priorities are stabilizing the state’s manufacturing sector and jumpstarting the state’s entry into the green energy economy.
On Jan. 6, Governor Doyle introduced his green energy development plan, the proposed Clean Energy Jobs Act, to the Legislature. The bill embodies recommendations by the Global Warming Task Force that Doyle created in 2007 to find ways to combat predicted climate change in Wisconsin, including drought, damage to forests and wetlands, and already historically low Lake Michigan water levels.
“This bill will ensure Wisconsin is on the leading edge in capturing green jobs,” said state Rep. Nick Milroy, D-Superior.
It calls for weaning the state of its dependence on fossil fuels by increasing the use of renewable fuels, and even invites a debate over potential new nuclear power development.
The bill would mandate that 25 percent of energy be generated from renewable sources – including wind, solar and biomass – by 2025. The state’s current goal is 10 percent by 2015, and at the end of 2008, Wisconsin was just less than 5 percent.
by jboullion | Feb 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a news release issued by Govenor Doyle:
WISCONSIN RAPIDS – Governor Jim Doyle today signed into law Senate Bill 440, which allows the state to maximize federal bonds to help fund projects that will create hundreds of jobs in Wisconsin. The Governor signed the bill at Energy Composites, a wind blade manufacturing plant in Wisconsin Rapids that could benefit from the measure.
The federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allows certain local units of government to issue Recovery Zone Facility bonds for private sector economic development projects. Wisconsin received $238 million in bonding authority to be divided among 63 counties, plus the cities of Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay. Under the Recovery Act, most counties did not receive a large enough share of the funding to effectively provide assistance to businesses that need it. These bonds must be issued by January 1, 2011.
Under SB 440, any county or city that does not use its original bond allocation in a timely manner has its share re-entered into a statewide pool. The Department of Commerce will then administer that pool to provide needed financing to help companies like Energy Composites move forward projects to expand and create jobs.
“Thanks to President Obama and Congressman Obey, the Recovery Act has given us this powerful tool to create new jobs here in Wisconsin, especially in the emerging clean energy economy,” Governor Doyle said. “By pooling these resources together, we will make sure we take full advantage of this opportunity and move forward job-creating projects across the state.”
Energy Composites is looking to break ground on a 535,000 square foot wind blade manufacturing plant next month, a project that will create more than 600 good-paying clean energy jobs for the Wisconsin Rapids area. The signing of SB 440 will allow the company to request bonds from Commerce to help move the project forward.
by jboullion | Feb 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in the Kenosha News:
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and President Barack Obama were talking the same language Wednesday: renewable energy and jobs.
The president was in Washington speaking to a group of governors about his energy policy, which includes spending more money on biofuels such as ethanol.
“It’s good for our national security and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It’s good for our economy, because it will create jobs.”
Gov. Doyle was in Kenosha, speaking at Gateway Technical College’s Horizon Center.
He said Wisconsin spends $16 billion a year for coal, petroleum and natural gas, money that goes out of the state because Wisconsin doesn’t produce those fuels. If the state used 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources, that would mean $4 billion remains here to boost our economy.
Wisconsin’s wind energy production has been growing for several years. Ethanol also has a lot of promise. So far, most ethanol in Wisconsin is produced from corn, because that was the technology that developed first, but other sources for ethanol continue to develop, including wood products, waste from paper mills and grasses. Wisconsin can produce grass and wood probably a lot easier than many states, and those crops take less energy to produce because the don’t need the cultivation of fertilization corn requires.
