In the city of Richmond, people can get everything they need to start their own urban gardens, with a little help from the local library. The seedbank at the Richmond library is the brainchild of school teacher Rebecca Newburn. “I think it takes and connects a lot of dots for me - it’s creating community. People are coming together and we’re sharing our resources and sharing our skills.” The seeds are rented at no cost, but you do have to fill out the correct forms and attend a small workshop. Information on each type of plant is typed on index cards and color-coded to show how hard or easy they are to grow. The seeds may be free, but that doesn’t mean you get them for nothing. At the end of the growing season you have to bring back your new seeds, so somebody else can borrow them and keep the idea passing forward.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7612093

- The costs of driving cars are huge- if people thought about it, they would really like to get over $8,000 tax-free every year! And how should a city calculate public transportation costs? - Editor
 

Costs to displaced transit riders could outweigh the $47M Pittsburgh needs
The cost of cutting public transit service by 35 percent could far exceed the $47 million that is needed to avoid the cuts, according to various projections.  If the Port Authority loses 15 percent to 22 percent of its ridership after the proposed Jan. 9 cuts, as it predicts, those displaced riders would spend an additional $135 million to $198 million annually to drive and park. The association releases an annual study of the savings enjoyed by transit riders. This year’s report, issued in April, concluded that riders in Pittsburgh save $8,174 each year on gasoline, parking, maintenance and other automotive costs.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10231/1081135-455.stm

- We wrote about this innovative grid project months ago that now has added an important element- new powerful batteries that aim to solve the barrier that renewable energies of solar and wind have by storing the energy so it can be used when there is demand, not just when it is created. Exciting! If you have investment capability, there are opportunities here. - Editor
 

Xtreme Power
The startups that have teamed up to build a transmission hub to connect the U.S.’s three major grids in the east, west and Texas are adding another startup player for energy storage. This afternoon, Tres Amigas, the Santa Fe, N.M-based company behind the transmission project, announced that they have partnered with Xtreme Power, a startup which provides groups of batteries for energy storage for the power grid. Xtreme Power’s batteries would provide storage for the SuperStation to help balance the flow of electricity, and importantly, to enable the addition of more clean power, which is variable, depending on the wind and sunlight, which aren’t always available. Xtreme Power’s batteries would store and release power in response to fluctuations in demand and supply at the hub. For its batteries, Xtreme uses a PowerCell battery chemistry that it calls a “chemical capacitor,” which it says can beat lithium-ion batteries in terms of energy storage, efficiency, cycle life and cost. CEO Carlos Coe told us that Xtreme’s PowerCell battery tech acts more like capacitors: charging and discharging at high speeds, while at the same time, maintaining the qualities that make batteries better than capacitors for long-term energy storage.
http://earth2tech.com/2010/08/18/xtreme-power-joins-the-transmission-hub-project/

“You cannot imagine the pressure we suffered that first year. Politicians must take tough decisions.”
Manuel Pinho, Portugal’s minister of economy and innovation from 2005 until last year,
 who largely masterminded the transition

- Yes! Making the right decisions can be tough but so very necessary! We all must support politicians who are determined to make tough but right decisions. The goals being set now in the U.S. are far too timid- even non-existent.- Editor
 

Portugal Rocks Renewables: 45% Renewable Electricity by Year’s End
For the past 5 years Portugal has been pushing a dramatic shift to renewable energy. Compared to the standard “20% renewables by 2020” targets that are often brought out at press conferences, its accomplishments are impressive: By the end of the year nearly 45% of its electricity will come from renewable sources. That’s up from 17% five years ago.

If you think of it as a recipe, there are three key ingredients of Portugal’s success:
• 1 part opening up of the energy sector to market forces (including the privatization of energy utilities)
• 1 part technological modernization (in particular the creation of a smart-grid able to handle diverse sources of renewable energy), and
• 2 parts savvy country-wide energy policy (including guaranteed rates for renewables, and the EU Carbon Trading System).

Photo- wind farm in Portugal
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011498.html

- What a horrifying thought while we are still reeling from the massive Gulf spill! And I never knew there were “ice control companies”- did you? Creating jobs to manage disasters really doesn’t qualify as green jobs, but green jobs can help prevent the need to manage disasters.  - Editor

Greenland’s giant island of ice could pose threat to offshore platforms, shipping
It’s slowly drifting across Arctic waters, an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan that broke off from a glacier in Greenland over the weekend.
Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes- and any collision could do untold damage. “It’s so big that you can’t prevent it from drifting. You can’t stop it,” said Jon-Ove Methlie Hagen, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo. Few images can capture the world’s climate fears like a 100 square mile (260 sq. kilometre) chunk of ice breaking off Greenland’s vast ice sheet. One Massachusetts Congressman has suggested, with presumed sarcasm, that it serve as a home for climate skeptics. Large enough to threaten Canada’s offshore platforms in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. Wohlleben said “iceberg control companies” can redirect smaller icebergs, by towing them or spraying them with water cannons. “I don’t think they could do with an iceberg that large,” she said. “They would have to physically move the rig.”
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/breakingnews/greenlands-giant-island-of-ice-could-pose-threat-to-offshore-platforms-shipping-100369689.html

-  Cutting funding for renewable energy by more than half while the Senate voted against proposed cuts to oil and gas subsidies verges on insanity. Doesn’t anyone in D.C. have children? - Editor

To help pay for the aid bill, lawmakers cut $1.5 billion from the Department of Energy’s renewable energy loan guarantee program. It’s the second time in roughly a year that Congress has raided the program to fund other priorities. Last summer, lawmakers cut $2 billion from the Dept. of Energy’s renewable energy loan account to extend the highly popular Cash for Clunkers program. Congress has not repaid the agency that $2 billion, despite frequent promises. Taken together, the cuts have whittled the program’s budget down to $2.5 billion, less than half the $6 billion Congress appropriated in early 2009.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/11/renewable-energy-backers-wince-as-congress-raids-doe-coffers/

- The many government leaders who read Climate Today may want to read this report for its analysis of policy effectiveness. - Editor

Feed-in tariffs responsible for 75% of solar deployment
The lure of feed-in tariffs (FITs) has been responsible for around 75% of solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment around the world and 45% of wind power, according to a study by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). FITs are the most widely used renewable energy policy, in operation in over 75 countries, outweighing both tax incentives and renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies. But the widespread introduction of European-style FITs in the US is hampered by the Federal Power Act (FPA) and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), which would require an investigation and specific rulemaking or declaratory order. Alternatively, Congress could take action and had the Waxman-Markey climate bill – the 2009 American Clean Energy and Security Act – been passed this would have clarified a number of the issues. NREL’s guide provides a complete overview of the policy options for FITs, and the key elements that US states should consider if introducing FITs.
For the report: www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/44849.pdf
http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/power-generation/i/3302/

- This important concept can help you explain extreme events to others. - Editor
Frozen jet stream links Pakistan floods, Russian fires
Raging wildfires in western Russia and diluvial rains over northern Pakistan- it now seems that these two apparently disconnected events have a common cause. According to meteorologists monitoring the atmosphere above the northern hemisphere, unusual holding patterns in the jet stream are to blame. As a result, weather systems sat still. Temperatures rocketed and rainfall reached extremes. In recent weeks, meteorologists have noticed a change in the jet stream’s normal pattern. Its waves normally shift east, dragging weather systems along with it. But in mid-July they ground to a halt.  Stationary patterns in the jet stream are called “blocking events”. Normally, these systems are constantly on the move – but not during a blocking event.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727730.101-frozen-jet-stream-links-pakistan-floods-russian-fires.html