Alternative Energy

Dairy farmer Ron Koetsier's 1,200 cows produce roughly 90 tons of manure daily, and for the last three decades, he has tried unsuccessfully to turn the stinky dung into energy to power his 450-acre farm in Visalia. He installed a nearly $1-million renewable energy system in 1985 that used the methane from manure to create electricity for his farm. In 2002, he replaced that system with newer technology, but he hit a snag when air-quality standards called for expensive retrofits to reduce air pollution; he eventually shut down the system in 2009.

Dairy farmer Ron Koetsier's 1,200 cows produce roughly 90 tons of manure daily, and for the last three decades, he has tried unsuccessfully to turn the stinky dung into energy to power his 450-acre farm in Visalia. He installed a nearly $1-million renewable energy system in 1985 that used the methane from manure to create electricity for his farm. In 2002, he replaced that system with newer technology, but he hit a snag when air-quality standards called for expensive retrofits to reduce air pollution; he eventually shut down the system in 2009.

Oxnard School District trustees agreed to study whether Thurgood Marshall School, still under construction, could be equipped with an alternative energy system. A committee overseeing the construction asked the board for permission to look into the use of microturbines, which would give the school its own energy source. The committee will make a recommendation to the board in the coming months.

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris is determined to make his desert town a hub for Chinese companies specializing in alternative energy. That dream came a little closer at the public unveiling Wednesday of the plug-in electric bus factory owned by Build Your Dreams, or BYD, an electric vehicle manufacturer in Shenzhen, China. BYD is taking over an 110,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Lancaster that formerly produced recreational vehicles. Its initial investment of more than $10 million also includes a nearby plant that will produce energy storage modules and electric batteries for the buses.

A festival celebrating alternative transportation and the environment will be held Oct. 16 on the Santa Monica College campus. The festival will mark the first leg of the first International Electric Grand Prix, a road rally from Long Beach to San Bernardino featuring 60 vehicles powered by the sun, electricity and other alternative energy sources. The event, which is free, will feature many of the Grand Prix vehicles, some of which will be available for drives and rides by the public.

The article on energy alternatives mentioned that energy from biomass is not yet practical. It was on its way to becoming practical in the 1930s when Henry Ford was growing cannabis plants (hemp; marijuana) and powering his autos with processed methanol from those unique plants. At about the same time, new machinery was making the harvest and breakdown of these prolific biomass creators fast and efficient. The Times article mentioned ethanol production from corn, a plant that produces biomass at a fraction of the amount that hemp can provide per acre, even on marginal land.

California's push to add wind and solar energy to its existing power grid could saddle ratepayers with soaring electrical bills and despoil the state's environmental resources unless officials act soon, according to a report released Monday by a government watchdog agency. Although it applauded the state's effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the nonpartisan Little Hoover Commission said that a "balkanized" and "dysfunctional" collection of state energy agencies threatened to create a "profoundly expensive policy failure.

The scenes were oddly similar. On June 17, 2010, an explosion at a Simi Valley alternative energy company blew off part of the roof and caused parts of the building to collapse. Employee Tyson Larson, 28, was killed and two others injured. On Tuesday, another explosion rocked an alternative energy company in Sylmar, tearing a hole in the roof and shattering windows of neighboring businesses. This time Timothy Larson, a veteran Los Angeles city firefighter who has been on disability leave for several years, was critically injured.

Alternative energy producers may get less money for their power, after a state appeals court Wednesday voided the California Public Utilities Commission's method for determining rates for renewable energy purchases. The court acted after Southern California Edison protested that the state was forcing it to spend too much for geothermal, wind and solar power. Edison buys a third of its power from alternative energy producers at a cost of more than $2 billion a year.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power moved ahead Tuesday with plans to tap wind and geothermal power as part of its drive to increase the use of alternative energy sources. The agency's board approved an agreement to take ownership of a $239-million wind farm, which a private contractor is developing for the DWP in Kern County. The Pine Tree project, initially budgeted at $162 million, is erecting 80 wind turbines to provide 120 megawatts of power, enough to power up to 120,000 homes.

WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he is leaving the Obama administration, ending a tenure marked by active development of alternative energy that won plaudits from environmentalists and drew attacks from conservatives, especially after the bankruptcy of the federally-backed solar panel maker, Solyndra. Chu said that he planned to stay at least through late February and was prepared to stay longer in order to hand over the agency to a new secretary. A Nobel laureate in physics, Chu oversaw the deployment of $35 billion in stimulus funding, much of it to research initiatives and companies charting new vehicle fuels, advanced batteries for large-scale power storage and  renewable energy.

California's push to add wind and solar energy to its existing power grid could saddle ratepayers with soaring electrical bills and despoil the state's environmental resources unless officials act soon, according to a report released Monday by a government watchdog agency. Although it applauded the state's effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the nonpartisan Little Hoover Commission said that a "balkanized" and "dysfunctional" collection of state energy agencies threatened to create a "profoundly expensive policy failure.

On the few social occasions that I had a chin-wag with Larry Hagman, he talked not at all about his acting career, not much about the renown of his birthright -- a reference or two to his mother, Mary Martin -- and a great deal about renewable energy and living “off the grid.” Yep, the man whose TV career was founded on oil -- first thanks to that fetching genie living in an ancient oil lamp and then as a Texas petroleum tycoon -- was a...

California voters have not been kind to wealthy people who spend millions of dollars trying to pass a ballot initiative. For every Rob Reiner and Stephen Bing , who combined their ample wallets to push through a cigarette tax in 1998, there are multiple more like T. Boone Pickens, whose natural-gas company spent millions in vain on an initiative to subsidize clean-energy vehicles and projects. Or like Bing, who flushed a boatload of cash in 2006 on an initiative to fund alternative energy by taxing oil wells . Yet those with exceptionally deep pockets can't resist the temptation to try to impose their political will on the state.

SACRAMENTO - On 7,300 isolated acres in eastern Kern County, a plan for dozens of wind turbines 20 stories high to generate enough electricity for tens of thousands of homes may hinge on who is elected president. Millions of dollars have been spent laying the groundwork. Permits are in order, contractors are lined up, government planners are on board. But like many other green energy efforts in California, the Avalon Wind Project awaits the fate of key federal subsidies. For Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, such aid represents government run amok, allowing bureaucrats to pick winners and losers in renewable energy rather than letting the free market sort them out. Romney has not offered many specifics about what he would cut, but his opposition in general to aid for alternative energy production has been a pillar of his campaign.

SANTA RITA DO SAPUCAI, Brazil - Muscular young men in red jumpsuits hunch over a set of matching stationary bicycles, sweating and panting. A few more wait to take over when the first group is too tired to go on. They keep the wheels turning nonstop, eight hours a day, seven days a week. They aren't a cycling team training for the 2016 Summer Olympics, which will take place in nearby Rio de Janeiro. They are a group of convicts riding for their freedom. The bikes are hooked up to portable batteries, which light up the humble boardwalk along this small country town's river each night.

The effort by utilities to find new methods of generating electricity--coupled with the public's increasing environmental awareness--is causing a boom for local alternative energy producers and manufacturers of equipment that use wind, sun or water to produce electricity. Manufacturers such as San Diego-based Kyocera America, which makes solar panels, and SeaWest, a local company that develops wind turbine projects, are counting on a grass-roots energy awareness movement to boost sales.

California's power crisis is helping to revive alternative-energy stocks, most of which soared, then crashed last year with the general technology sector. But analysts warn that the companies, which are involved in solar cells, fuel cells, micro-turbines and other alternative power-generation systems for businesses and homes, don't offer a quick fix for California's woes or for higher oil and natural gas prices that are weighing on the economy overall.

In the U.S. - land of the gas-guzzler SUV and 24/7 air conditioning - energy efficiency isn't known as a strong suit. The country's power management efforts are so poor that a new report ranks it near the bottom of the pack of major economies. On a list of a dozen countries, which together account for 63% of global energy consumption, the U.S.' efficiency efforts are ranked in lowly ninth place. With a score of 47 out of 100, the U.S. outpaces only Brazil, Canada and Russia, according to the report from the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, known as ACEEE.

After being pummeled for months by both left and right over the Keystone XL pipeline, the Obama administration is trying to start over -- this time with a new name. In January, the administration turned down an application to build the pipeline from Canada's tar sands region to the Gulf Coast. TransCanada, the company that wants to build the pipeline, more recently announced plans to go ahead with the southern portion of the route, starting from Cushing, Okla., which White House officials maintain is the more urgently needed part.