Sunday, 11 July 2010 16:03

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has been fighting against Florida utility plans to build up to four risky new nuclear reactors while advocating for safe, clean and affordable energy choices that can reduce global warming pollution now including energy efficiency and conservation, wind, solar and bioenergy. With an already high reliance on nuclear power in Florida and with both Progress Energy of Florida and Florida Power and Light pursuing high cost new reactors, the time is now to take action.

SACE has intervened at the Florida Public Service Commission over the past years to stop Progress from building new reactors at the proposed site in Levy County. In 2009, SACE intervened in the 2009 Nuclear Cost Recovery Clause process that reviews both Progress' Levy Co. proposal and FPL's effort to build two new reactors at their existing Turkey Point  nuclear plant near Miami. See below to view expert testimony filed by economist Dr. Mark Cooper and nuclear engineer, Mr. Arnie Gundersen and SACE press releases. The FL PSC held hearings September 8-10, 2009 and heard SACE experts urge the PSC to reject FPL & Progress' scheme to charge customers nearly half a billion dollars for early cost recovery. On October 7, the PSC staff issued a recommendation that provided the utilities with nearly all they asked for. The PSC Commissioners voted 3-1 to approve FPL and Progress' scheme on October 16. Commissioner Argenziano was the sole dissenting vote. On October 19, SACE filed information with the FL PSC highlighting the serious safety concerns the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently announced with the Toshiba-Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor design. On October 26, SACE requested oral argument to discuss the AP1000 concerns. In November, the PSC issued the final order. 

Thursday, 08 July 2010 00:00

• Week 1: June 29th - July 2nd: Site Planning & Development. Brainstorming layout & garden design elements. Research Biodynamic and Permaculture principles.
• Week 2: July 5th-9th. Materials Gathering and Soil Building. Composting Principles. Collection of organic matter. Site layout.
• Week 3: July 12th-16th. Raised Bed Building & Infrastructure Development. Planning & Designing an Earth Bag Shelter/Pavilion.
• Week 4: July 19th-23rd. Continue Garden Building, Raised Beds, Art Projects, and Earth Bag Shelter.
• Week 5: July 26th-30th. Irrigation Design & Infrastructure. Rainwater Collection System. Design & Plan for a Natural Pond.
• Week 6: August 2nd-6th. Tree planting. Fall Garden planning. Mapping plants & combining elements. Community Outreach & Marketing.

Contact Citizen's Co-Op at www.citizensco-op.com for more information.

Wednesday, 07 July 2010 00:00

The Canadian Boreal Forest which stretches accross most of the country, is also the most exported forest in the world.  Home to carribou and several threatened species, the coaltion of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC)—representing 21 Canadian forest companies—and nine environmental organizations has signed an agreement to protect 72 million hectares (180 million acres) of forest across the country.

The resulting Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement creates a three-year plan for developing and implementing sustainable forest management for an area roughly the size of Texas. The plan immediately halts all logging on nearly 29 million hectares (72 million acres) that represents almost all of the caribou habitat controlled by the 21 companies. The rest of the covered forest will be managed according to standards that will be developed by FPAC and environmental groups.

Read the rest from BuildingGreen.com below... 

Tuesday, 06 July 2010 01:34

Wednesday, 30 June 2010 00:00

The uber-green blogsite Treehugger recently posted about the way that the UF entry  to the Solar Decathlon poetically and literally epitomizes sustainable construction.  Using salvaging wood off a 19th Century Micanopy craker house, with help from local deconstruction artists Bearded Brothers, UF's Project RE:Focus made an effort to design a house that is sustainable beyond the definition of energy efficiency. 

Also not mentioned but should be recognized is little old us, INDIGOGreen, who helped them get FSC acetylized Accoya wood for the retractable shades and breathable skin for the house. 

Cheers to the UF team where everything old is new again.   Let's at least have one US team bring home the cup from an international competition this summer!

Read the full article from Treehugger.com here:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/solar-decathlon-university-of-florida.php?campaign=daily_nl

Tuesday, 29 June 2010 23:01

Thinking about bike parades is a wonderful thing.  A vision out of a cloud of combustables, a bike parade can really get things moving.  Well, I hope that we at INDIGOGreen could, with the help of city officials and other local businesses get a bike parade going at the end of a parade that happens every year in Gainesville in which the whole town participates.  Wait you say!  There is such a parade?  It's called the UF Homecoming Parade?

Of course, this is not only a dream of our very own visonary City Comissioner Randy Wells, it can be a reality.  How wonderful to see the creative and diverse array of bikers in  a parade  at the end of the UF Homecoming Parade that culminates in a Sustainability Fair at the Gainesville Downtown Plaza!  Let it be!

Ok, now that I have you all hot about it, check out the big bike conference in Copenhagen called Velo City 2010:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/velo-city-2010-bike-parade-copenhagen-video.php

Monday, 28 June 2010 13:50

For all the songs written about the glory of rock n' roll life, the road can be tough.  Yes "tough, tough stuff" in the words of Tenacious D.  But the road can also be wasteful stuff.  

Although you are essentially carpooling when on the road, you are doing a lot of driving which if you are not on biodiesel, can be a good deal of CO2.  Nevermind if you are somebody like Radiohead or U2, which also means a considerable amount of flights around the world. 

Something of a coalition from the company that helps bands green their tours- Reverb-, the Green Music Group is a collection of venues and bands that have joined forces to be a bit more responsible about what comes in and out of a tour bus.  No, I'm not talking groupies, there's of course nothing wrong with sharing, and I'm not talking about drugs and glass bottles of beer and alcohol.  The GMG is watching out for all those plastic bottles of water that get used by musicians while they are working it onstage and backstage.

From the website, http://challenge.greenmusicgroup.org/ Bonnie Rait issues a challenge to step away from the bottle and this time she means the plastic water bottle:

Disposable water bottles create a ton of unnecessary plastic waste in concessions and backstage. We green music types have been working hard to reduce this waste by offering reusable water bottles as merchandise items to fans and using refillable bottles on tour both onstage and behind the scenes.

I's about time that we realize how much waste we've been creating through rock n' roll since the day after Woodstock. 

Also check out CREx (Carbon Reduction and Energy Exchange www.crexonline.org)  a local non-profit initiative that has been working with the FEST for past three years to do the same thing as Reverb that is, to bring to light the amount of CO2 emitted by such great events, and offering education and ways to reduce or offset emissions.  Only we're doing it local...

Thursday, 24 June 2010 01:57

Let's hope both Spain and the United States can both make it far enough in the World Cup to meet each other in the semi final rounds.  But if we can't meet on the pitch for the challenge of the cup, we can at least know that the challenge of a zero-energy home is being met right now by UF students on Spanish soil.

The Solar Decathlon is a competition in which university teams design and build an 800-square-foot house that must only run on solar energy.  Our very own UF team (in which INDIGOGreen's very own Sam Kuhpal paricipated in) is one of only two U.S. groups competing.  The house was constructed using reclaimed heart pine sourced by our local deconstruction artists the Bearded Brothers, as well as Accoya wood and Kohler sinks through INDIGOGreen.  Quite a feat, the house was initially built in Gainesville then disassembled for transportation to Madrid then reassembled in ten days for the competition.

So now, the UF team needs your help.  The University of Florida team can receive the Web Choice Award over 16 other universities from around the world who all think they have designed the best solar-energy home.  Running through June27th, visitors to the Solar Decathlon may vote for their two favorite solar house designs.  The house that gets the most votes will received the less meaningful but nonetheless coveted Web Choice Award.

To vote for your swampland team, go to:

 http://www.sdeurope.org/novedades/votacion_casa.htm