Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation Breaks Ground

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation broke ground on its new “green” research tower. The facility will add 185,000 square feet of laboratory, administrative and clinical research space to OMRF’s campus—and will generate a portion of the energy it uses through 24 wind turbines that will sit atop its roof.

“This tower will be the first medical research facility anywhere to harness the wind to help power its labs,” OMRF President Stephen Prescott, M.D., said. “It will be a model of energy efficiency and resource preservation. Just as importantly, it will serve as the keystone for the largest expansion in OMRF’s 63-year history.”

“Most people design a building and then ask, ‘How can we make this green?’” said Prescott. “We worked to install the green features first, and then we designed the rest of the building around those features.”

Perkins and Will are serving as the chief architects for the project with architectural integration of renewable energy and sustainable assets provided by Synergy International.

Copenhagen Conference to Focus on Planet’s Long-term Sustainability

This December the world will meet in Copenhagen at the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference with the aim of agreeing to an ambitious and effective international response to our environmental crisis. This is a crucial year as many top scientists are now warning nervously of the catastrophic consequences of inaction. With newer data pointing to potentially disastrous rises in ocean levels and a continued erosion and eventual collapse of the food chain, it is apparent that the clock is ticking. It is the opinion of many that this next decade will be crucial in determining mankind’s future on this planet.

Federal Energy Plan Gets Mangled in Congress

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of heat-trapping gases that cause global warming, but President Obama's plan to fight climate change would result in the nation burning more coal a decade from now than it does today. The administration's plan, the centerpiece of a 700-page legislative package, proposes strict limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. But to attract vital support from congressional Democrats representing heavily coal-dependent areas, authors of the legislation have made a series of concessions that substantially soften its effect on coal, at least over the next decade or so. As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency projects that even if the emissions limits go into effect, the U.S. would use more carbon-dioxide-heavy coal in 2020 than it did in 2005. Despite their best intentions, the government has again come up short. When it got down to it, pork barrel considerations and home state interests were the determining factor in the eventual legislation.

That's because the bill gives utilities a financial incentive to keep burning coal by joining the cap-and-trade system -- a kind of marketplace where polluters could reduce their emissions on paper by buying pollution reductions created by others. These so-called offsets, for example, could be created and sold by farmers who planted trees, which filter carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Environmental groups also say the bill could set off a boom in the construction of new coal plants because of provisions that would restrict legal efforts to block such projects.

Snohomish PUD Promises Steady Rise in Electric Rates

For years, Snohomish County PUD has been forced to bear the increasing rates of electricity that it buys from the federal government because its commissioners haven’t passed on the cost to customers. On June 23, the utility proposed a new policy that would trigger rate increases whenever the Bonneville Power Administration, the utilities largest electricity provider, boosts the cost of power. PUD electricity rates shot up by more than 50 % in 2001 brought on by the 2000-01 West Coast Energy crisis. With the cost of world-wide energy projected to rise dramatically in the coming years, and the push of the federal government to curb our reliance on foreign imports, it is expected that more such rate increases are on the horizon.

Arctic Warming Linked the CA Droughts

A UC Davis geologist has new research that links arctic warming to California droughts.

ENERGIME Joins United Synergy Consortium

ENERGIME Renewable Energy Systems has joined the United Synergy Consortium which has been created to promote sustainable energy management and agricultural development worldwide. ENERGIME will partner with over 50 cutting edge technology companies whose stated goal is to reduce the world’s carbon footprint and the creation of a sustainable, worldwide agricultural network.

Synergy International, the lead company in this joint effort is a world leader in the diverse areas of sustainable development. These include solar, wind turbine, ground geo-thermal, heat exchange, waste stream, sustainable agriculture, and biomass processing technologies.

This effort is the brain child of former NASA scientist and sustainable development pioneer Professor Reinhold Ziegler. Professor Ziegler notes, “Sustainable growth requires a balance and coordinated application of many complimentary technologies and practices. The member companies and technology developers who are part of the consortium are for the most part, the original developers and designers of these newer technologies and concepts, and have been at it for more than 35 years.”

The goal of ENERGIME is to promote the most efficient, rapid distribution of these sorely needed solutions. Bill Sosinsky, ENERGIME CEO, says, “You cannot bake a cake using one ingredient. This cooperative ventures gives us direct access to every major technology needed to create a balanced solution. Sustainable energy management requires a combination of efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy applications. We look at the complete client profile to design the most cost effective, environmentally sound solution for our client’s individual needs. ENERGIME provides a complete range of services including energy audits and site evaluations, consulting, renewable energy systems design, architectural integration, and technology specification and acquisition. We also manage the installation and provide maintenance services for all our residential and business clients.”

Energime to Host Free Educational “Green Webinars”

Starting this fall, Energime Renewable Energy Systems will be hosting a series of free webinars on different aspects of sustainable growth in the new green economy. These webinars will cover subject such as “Energy use in the green environment”, “Retrofitting existing commercial structures for maximum energy efficiency”, “Sustainable energy development and design for the future” and “The need for efficiency in the renewable energy market” to name a few. Each bi-monthly webinar will have key political, organization, and technical leaders on hand as part of the discussion panel. Participants will be able to ask questions of the panel members and join in on the discussion.