Celebrating solar power

2010 Jan 23

CSU dedicates 15-acre plant that will put out 3½ million kilowatt hours

CSU on Friday dedicated one of the largest solar plants at a university in the nation.

Covering 15 acres, the solar power plant will generate more than 3½ million kilowatt hours of electricity annually. That's enough to meet more than 10 percent of the electricity consumed by the Foothills Campus at Colorado State University.
Gov. Bill Ritter, who attended Friday's dedication, said the project delivers on Colorado's promise of a "New Energy Economy."
"Not only is CSU researching and developing new clean-energy sources, it's adopting them to power its own operations," Ritter said in a statement.
CSU President Tony Frank said the university is "a leader in developing clean and renewable research solutions and has a strong research history in the field of solar energy."
"Our students and the community benefit from seeing real-life application of renewable energy at work. At the same time, we're saving money during tight fiscal times," Frank said in a statement. "Over 20 years, we expect to save the university more than $2 million in electric costs from the solar plant alone."
Read more:  http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20100123/NEWS01/1230328/Celebrating-solar-power
  
Want to help with Global-Warming? Please visit http://www.whiteearth.org

Please become a fan of the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/WhiteEarthorg/119367692642 and http://www.facebook.com/pages/WhiteEarth/165767310764

Become a friend on Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/christopherbeau

Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/christopherbeau

Become a follower of this blog

When you buy art on http://www.artsymphony.com 100% of your investment goes to sponsor WhiteEarth

Indian tribe sees bright future in solar power

 2010 Jan 13


JEMEZ PUEBLO, N.M.
A poverty-stricken Indian tribe that holds the sun and nature's other gifts sacred sees a brighter future for itself in solar power.
The 3,000 members of the Jemez Pueblo are on the verge of building the nation's first utility-scale solar plant on tribal land, a project that could bring in millions of dollars.
Experts say tapping into the sun, wind and geothermal energy on Indian land could generate the kind of wealth many tribes have seen from slot machines and blackjack tables.
"We don't have any revenue coming in except for a little convenience store," says James Roger Madalena, a former tribal governor who now represents the pueblo in the state Legislature. "It's very critical that we become innovative, creative, that we come up with something that will last generations without having a devastating impact on the environment."
The 30-acre site where 14,850 solar panels will be set up has been selected, and after four years of arduous planning and negotiations, a contract to sell outsiders the electricity produced by the four-megawatt operation is at hand. The plant would be capable of cranking out enough electricity to power about 600 homes.
The project — which would cost about $22 million, financed through government grants, loans and tax credits — could bring in around $25 million over the next 25 years. That could help the tribe improve its antiquated drinking water system and replace the lagoons it uses to treat wastewater.
Renewable energy is a new option for bringing revenue to Indian country, where many communities are poverty-stricken and unemployment is often double the national rate. Jemez Pueblo's effort comes after the federal government in 2008 turned down a request to let it build a casino because the proposed site was too far away from the community.
"Not every tribe is a gaming tribe, but every tribe is an energy tribe," says Roger Fragua, a Denver-based consultant who works with the Council of Energy Resource Tribes.
Indian tribes control more than 55 million acres of land across the nation, and those lands are capable of producing an estimated 535 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year from wind power, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Tribal Energy Program. Solar has even greater promise, at 17 trillion kilowatt hours per year, or more than four times the amount of electricity generated annually in the U.S.

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0114/Indian-tribe-sees-bright-future-in-solar-power
 
Want to help with Global-Warming? Please visit http://www.whiteearth.org

Please become a fan of the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/WhiteEarthorg/119367692642 and http://www.facebook.com/pages/WhiteEarth/165767310764

Become a friend on Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/christopherbeau

Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/christopherbeau

Become a follower of this blog

When you buy art on http://www.artsymphony.com 100% of your investment goes to sponsor WhiteEarth