Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Pittsburgh's Green Revolution

A few notes on recent green initiatives in and around and involving Pittsburgh:

Chris Briem notes biodiesel availability in Oakland.

An Oceana Group report argues that PPG can reduce or eliminate mercury discharges at a chlorine plant in Natrium, WVa. Link, and link.

Joe, my Mt. Lebanon co-blogger, sent me these links describing what one city is doing aggressively to address environmental issues. Link, and link.

Chris Schultz of Green is Good is blogging and organizing on a green tear.

Pittsburgh Green Drinks is organizing gatherings monthly at Bossa Nova.

Sustainable Pittsburgh has a healthy roster of events.

The Pittsburgh Technology Council has launched the ECO Pulse newsletter, focusing on energy and environmental resource issues affecting local businesses.

Last month, local firm Plextronics was awarded funding by the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar America Initiative (SAI). According to a Plex press release, the award comes from the SAI's Photovoltaic Technology Incubator, a program created to make solar photovoltaic technologies competitive with existing technologies by 2015.

3 comments:

Schultz said...

Wouldn't it be nice if Pittsburgh could one day get out of the hole it is in? How about instead of traveling to Louisville every year to study their city-county merger our officials go to Texas to study a city owned electric utility?

What if Pittsburgh owned its own electric company like Austin Texas?

From Austin Energy's website:

"On a yearly basis, Austin Energy returns profits from the sale of electricity to the community. These profits help fund City services. The 2003 transfer to the City’s General Fund was nearly $73 million.

The Austin Energy transfer is one of three main components of the City’s General Fund – the others are property tax and sales tax. Fire, Police, EMS Parks and Libraries all benefit from this transfer."

I'm sure some of you are thinking this is a pipe dream, but why not Pittsburgh? We do not need to rely on solar power to do this - Austin Energy gets most of its electricity from natural gas and coal fired plants, and under 8% from renewable sources such as wind energy.

Jefferson Provost said...

Shultz, as a one-time Austin Energy customer I can only say: YES!

Austin Energy is fantastic. Not only do they return their profits to the community, but they actively encourage energy conservation. They give rebates to customers who install high-efficiency HVAC units and they'll send someone to your house to evaluate your energy usage and help find draft and leaks.

Their service is also generally just better than here. Despite central Texas's affinity for severe thunderstorms, I've had more power failures in one year in my house in Dormont than I had in all the time I was an AE customer. Sometimes Duquesne Light makes me feel like I've moved to the third world.

greenartists said...

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www.seengreenpgh.blogspot.com
Green News,Events and Innovations in Pittsburgh and Beyond!

Christine