News: BBC.

A Greek Orthodox church in Cyprus will invest a substantial sum ($234m) towards solar panel manufacturing. The move should generate profits for the church, and also act as an anticipatory measure for a looming power crisis on the island.

We’ve noticed that smaller countries, like Cyprus, are increasingly home to these types of stories. Private citizens in countries with power infrastructure problems are finding solar to be the best solution for managing difficulties of access or affordability.

News: Associated Press.

An overhaul of the ferry routes to the Statue of Libery, designed to improve visitor experiences, will include green measures. Officials plan for reduced fuel consumption, including the use of solar and batteries to power the boats. One solar-powered ferry will provide a trip around the statue, without a landing, for tourists who want a closer view but fewer security hassles.

News: CBS.

AC Transit will use solar energy at facilities in Hollywood and Oakland to save $5m a year and reduce its carbon footprint. The company touted both benefits, emphasizing the environmental impact as well as the financial windfall.

AC Transit marks the latest in a long string of California companies going solar, presumably due to the state’s generous incentives, technological innovations, and green culture.

News: Ignite Clean Energy Competition

Since 2004, the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge has sponsored ICE (Ignite Clean Energy), a sustainable business competition with a twist: ICE is judged according to business presentations.

The idea is to encourage companies devoted to reducing the energy sector’s dependence on fossil fuels to develop business plans that might actually attract investors.

The winner of the 2007 competition was RSI Silicon, a Massachusetts-based company that has developed a way to produce solar-grade silicon requiring only 10% of the capital costs of current methods. Considering the world’s silicon crisis, such a process could be of incalculable value.

The runners-up: Fox2 Technologies, for the development of fuel efficiency and carbon reduction technologies for airplane and trucking operators; and Bagazo, whose business plan focuses on encouraging investment in sustainable businesses in developing countries.

News: Green Warehouses

An overlooked corner of the green building market has been distribution centers: corporations and office buildings are getting LEED-certified left and right, but with a 5-7% higher initial investment necessary to achieve the same standards as traditional buildings, DC’s have been slow to follow suit.

With recognition that green building is a sound financial investment and not just an act of altruistic idealism, however, that may be changing. International distribution and industrial real estate giant ProLogis is taking firm steps toward sustainable development; the rest of the industry may not be far behind.

The commercial agriculture industry in the United States relies on high yields from annual crops, most of which are single-variety and the only crop grown on a given plot of land all year.

Soil erosion and nutrient degradation have become so pronounced that researchers are concerned about the long-term viability of the industry. Global warming has also drawn more attention to this issue, as annual crops leave land barren for much of the year, damaging the land’s natural ability to act as a carbon sink; to make matters worse, the intensive fertilization and pesticide application necessary to new seeds every spring is heavily reliant on petroleum-derived products, thus feeding in to the industry on which the global warming debate is centered.

The Land Insitute of Kansas sees perennial crops as a partial solution to this problem: perennial rootstock defends against soil erosion, enhances biodiversity, reduces the leaching of chemicals into the water table, conserves water, and – most importantly to some – provides the sort of carbon sequestration of which we have such urgent need.

Author Steven Johnson, in an interview with Gourmet Magazine, likens the potential effects of perennial crops on commerical agriculture to that of hybrid vehicles on the auto industry: they may not be a solution to the problem posed by our dwindling fossil fuels, but they may provide a way to lend greater sustainability to our current way of life.

See: Gourmet Magazine, September 2007, “Against the Grain”

Saturday was an exciting day for us at GetSolar. The House passed two new energy bills that, among other things, will require most utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.

The measures also begins to extend and address production tax credits, which have been crucial to promoting growth in the renewables sector—and have been a particularly vital boon to wind-power manufacturers.

President Bush has promised to veto the package, citing that it disadvantages the oil and gas industry, and fails to adequately promote national security objectives. Moreover, things in Washington move extremely slowly.

Nevertheless, the recent activity is evidence that those in Washington are finally starting to view the creation of a federal renewable portfolio standard seriously.

Remember when Paul Hogan was popular and everyone knew what a Vegemite sandwich was?

Back in February, Australia announced that it would phase out the sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2010. The bulbs, which are foolishly inefficient, will be pulled from the market in order to allow compact fluorescent (CFLs) bulbs and LEDs to take over. While more expensive, these newer bulbs use about one-fourth the electricity of their predecessors and last 10 times as long.

As it turns out, Australia may once again be an international trendsetter.

A month after the announcement European leaders agreed to ban old-style bulbs, calling upon the European Commission to begin work on efficiency standards. Then, Canada unveiled plans to phase out incandescent bulbs by 2012. New Zealand, it seems, may follow suit as well.

So far in the U.S., most of the activity on the CFL front has taken place at the state level and among public interest groups and corporations. Whether federal lawmakers will ever catch “Aussie fever” remains to be seen.

Ermenegildo Zegna—the high-fashion Italian menswear company known for its chic sports jackets and made-to-measure suits—has announced the debut of a solar luxury jacket in its Zegna Sport Spring/Summer 2008 collection.

The company claims the jacket is the first of its kind. Considering the international frenzy over the Anya Hindmarch ‘I’m Not a Plastic Bag’ totes, which sold out in the U.S. in several hours, it appears as if the fashion industry has discovered the profitability in catering to consumers who desire to be fashionably green.

According to Zegna’s press release, the Solar JKT is a durable “fusion of form and function” that combats “the growing uncertainties of climate change” by recharging cell phones of all stripes, iPods and other small electronic devices. The power source? A set of flexible solar panels in its detachable, neoprene collar.

The jacket will be available in two styles, bomber jacket and three-quarter sleeve, for the fashion-conscious, eco-friendly man.

News: Spectrum Online

Traditionally, photovoltaic cells are fabricated from silicon. While cell efficiency is continually improving, the fact remains that the electricity generated from them is more expensive than that generated from conventional energy sources.

As the initial price and longer returns on investment are the main obstacles of more mainstream adoption of photovoltaic solar cells, the July 2007 breakthrough on a plastic, organic solar cell is viewed by the team leading the project as a promising step towards lower prices for sun-generated electricity.

The tandem solar cells, developed by a collaboration of South Korean scientists at South Korea’s Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and American Nobel laureate Alan Heeger at the UC Santa Barbara, each comprise two solar cells with “different absorption characteristics,” which are “linked to use a wider range of the solar spectrum,” states Science magazine.

The scientists have reported a 6.5 percent power conversion efficiency, the highest level yet for organic solar cells.

In spite of criticism that the solar cells use petroleum-based plastics, the scientists are hopeful for the technology’s ability to revolutionize the market, stating that it would take only ten cents to generate one watt of electricity and that it would be available for purchase in 3 years.