Green Energy

A student-run project that aims to turn a vacant former fraternity house into a laboratory for developing eco-friendly products is being recognized for its efforts. Drexel University's "Smart House" is one of three recipients of the World Green Energy Symposium's NOVA award, which annually honors outstanding contributions in new green-energy alternatives and innovations in existing energy technology. The award is to be presented Wednesday to Smart House students and staff at the three-day conference in Philadelphia.

Union president Jim Savage doesn't represent the 400 workers who learned yesterday that Sunoco Inc. would permanently shut down the Eagle Point refinery in Westville, Gloucester County. But he does represent other Sunoco refinery workers - and he thinks they and other "old energy" workers are being left out of all the talk about new and green energy. "It has created a lot of anxiety," said Savage, who leads United Steelworkers Local 10-1. And no wonder. Old-energy jobs in mining, refineries, and electricity tend to be union jobs with decent wages and benefits.

The Philadelphia Eagles' season has not yet officially begun, but the NFL team has already been declared an environmental winner. The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Green Sports Alliance on Wednesday cited the Eagles franchise as one of 20 leaders in the green-energy movement. The Eagles are retrofitting Lincoln Financial Field with solar panels, wind turbines and a biodiesel/natural gas generator that can produce 100 percent of the stadium's energy needs. The project, which is being installed by NRG Energy Inc. of Princeton, will give the Eagles "the most extensive on-site renewable system of any U.S. sports stadium," NRDC says.

"Oops! We made a mistake. " That was how Green Mountain Energy alerted its customers this week that they may not be getting exactly what they expected when they signed up to buy electricity from Green Mountain. Not that they aren't getting so-called "green energy" - electricity generated without coal, oil or nuclear power, and with at least a portion of "renewable" power from such sources as wind energy and small-scale hydroelectric plants. Nor are the customers paying a different price than promised by Green Mountain Energy Resources - now part of Greenmountain.

Gov. Rendell announced yesterday that the state government would double, to 20 percent, the amount of electricity it consumed from renewable energy sources, moving Pennsylvania up among the nation's largest annual purchasers of green power. John Hanger, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit public interest group PennFuture, said it was a "watershed" moment for the state, signaling both the potential for green electricity and a hope in the future for energy independence.

Detailed design work is under way on a generating plant that would tap the methane gas bubbling beneath Burlington County's landfill and turn it into usable electricity. The $10.3 million plant, approved last month by the freeholders, is expected to generate $15.2 million in revenue over 15 years from the sale of electricity. It should be ready to operate in 18 months to two years, said Freeholder Director Dawn Marie Addiego. "What makes this project so attractive," she said, "is that we're dealing with clean, renewable resources, or what is often referred to as green energy.

Environment-friendly power plants are popping up in Pennsylvania and across the nation as electricity suppliers increasingly invest in new technologies that generate "green" energy. The most popular newfangled power sources are windmill turbines, solar photovoltaic panels, and fuel cells - all of which are virtually nonpolluting and have the potential to power buildings and homes as effectively as traditional coal and nuclear plants. "The market has now spoken," said Nora Mead Brownell, a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission member.

Jim Geraghty is a contributing editor at National Review magazine and regularly appears on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Our current blazingly hot summer is spurring another go-round of exhausted arguments about climate change, whether it is "real" and "is it man-made?" Ideally, the national discussion would move past those questions. Whether the phenomenon is exaggerated or whatever the cause, the uncomfortable fact is that very few climate scientists believe that the process is significantly reversible, and certainly not by unilateral U.S. action.

Wednesday's warm and sunny weather was propitious for the new solar-powered traffic light at Woodbury-Glassboro Road in Mantua Township, at the entrances to a Target store and Timber Creek Shopping Center. "We are always looking for ways to use green energy, so we're happy to be the first to be doing this," Gloucester County Freeholder Heather Simmons said of the four-way signal, which is topped with six solar panels. It is the first of its kind in New Jersey, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Sustainability entrepreneur Charlie Szoradi is offering $1 million in green-jobs scholarships through his GreenandSave Eco Academy in Devon. To qualify, recipients must be either U.S. veterans, home-installation contractors, home inspectors or real estate agents, and apply by July 4. The money would be used for training specialists in green building and energy conservation. For more information, visit www.EcoAcademy.com . "We're seeding the job opportunity market to ensure we provide opportunities that attract, educate, train and provide excellent, long-term careers for a whole new class of green-energy workers," Szoradi said.

PALERMO, Italy - Inside a midnight-blue BMW, a Sicilian entrepreneur delivered his pitch to the accused mob boss. A new business was blowing into Italy that could spin wind and sunlight into gold, ensuring the future of Earth as well as the Cosa Nostra: renewable energy. "Uncle Vincenzo," implored the businessman, Angelo Salvatore, using a term of affection for the alleged head of Sicily's Gimbellina crime family, Vincenzo Funari, 79. According to a transcript of their wiretapped conversation, Salvatore continued: "For the love of our sons, renewable energy is important.

Al Gore is about 50 times richer than he was when he left the vice presidency in 2001. According to an Oct. 11 report by the Washington Post's Carol D. Leonnig, Gore accumulated a Romneyesque $100 million partly by investing in alternative-energy firms subsidized by the Obama administration. Two days after that story ran, Mitt Romney proclaimed at a rally in Ohio's Appalachian coal country: "We have a lot of coal; we are going to use it. We are going to keep those jobs. " Thousands cheered.

Former Gov. Rendell on Friday encouraged green-energy advocates to support President Obama, despite the lack of enthusiasm they might have with the president's environmental record. Rendell, the keynote speaker at the PennFuture 2012 Clean Energy Conference at the DoubleTree Hotel in Center City, said there was "no question" that Obama supports a green-energy agenda. The Democrat said he was concerned about complacency because polls show Obama leading in Pennsylvania. "I want you not to believe for a second the fight here is over," Rendell told the audience of about 200 people, including representatives of nonprofits, government, and industry.

The Philadelphia Eagles' season has not yet officially begun, but the NFL team has already been declared an environmental winner. The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Green Sports Alliance on Wednesday cited the Eagles franchise as one of 20 leaders in the green-energy movement. The Eagles are retrofitting Lincoln Financial Field with solar panels, wind turbines and a biodiesel/natural gas generator that can produce 100 percent of the stadium's energy needs. The project, which is being installed by NRG Energy Inc. of Princeton, will give the Eagles "the most extensive on-site renewable system of any U.S. sports stadium," NRDC says.

Let the power games begin. On Wednesday, Philadelphia became the largest U.S. city to join an Environmental Protection Agency program aimed at getting more people, businesses, institutions - and more towns - to purchase electricity generated by solar panels, wind turbines, and other "green" sources. The program is voluntary, but once a city opts in, competition can heat up. Until Philadelphia's entry, Washington had bragging rights as the largest municipality in the program.

Green jobs - or, as our president calls them, the "jobs of the future" - have been notoriously tough to define and count. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics recently did it, though, and now it's the result that's notorious. Facing an admittedly difficult project, the BLS created a definition that is so broad as to make it a meaningless measure of the green economy. Here's a sneak preview: There are 33 times as many green jobs in the septic tank and portable toilet servicing industry as there are in solar electricity utilities.

The trustees of Rutgers University, whose consent even Gov. Christie presumably needs to consummate a shotgun wedding between Rowan University and Rutgers-Camden, don't like being rushed. "I feel like I'm doing this with a gun to my head," trustee Dorothy Cantor said Thursday, referring to the governor's ambitious/preposterous July 1 deadline for setting the merger in motion. Rutgers trustees are frustrated by the lack of financial and other details in Christie's overall proposal, which mostly involves transferring assets of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to Rutgers-New Brunswick.

Brian Ott shivered or sweltered during services, depending on the season, when Hope Christian Fellowship, the church led by his brother Mark, shared a 1962 Woodbury synagogue building owned by Beth Israel Congregation. Ott, a mechanical engineer, said it reminded him of his youth, when he attended school in an old building that was once part of a missile-defense complex. "We went to Gloucester County Christian School, and that was built on an old Nike site in Pitman. No one in the 1960s worried about efficiency, and the buildings were impossible to heat or cool correctly," said Brian Ott. "But now we live in different times.

A student-run project that aims to turn a vacant former fraternity house into a laboratory for developing eco-friendly products is being recognized for its efforts. Drexel University's "Smart House" is one of three recipients of the World Green Energy Symposium's NOVA award, which annually honors outstanding contributions in new green-energy alternatives and innovations in existing energy technology. The award is to be presented Wednesday to Smart House students and staff at the three-day conference in Philadelphia.