BMW has been recognized as a good car manufacturer, but for now it lacks electric vehicles. Only their plans could make us look at the brighter and cleaner side of their logo: the MegaCity EV, whose existence as a concept had been revealed a few months ago.
RESIDENTIAL SOLAR POWER
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Archive for July 5th, 2010
Oregon Solar Program Sells Out in 15 Minutes
Posted in July 5th, 2010
In a previous post, I described an upcoming program in Oregon that would pay solar power users up to six times the going rate for electricity to install photovoltaics on their homes. The program opened for registration at 8 am on Thursday, July 1, 2010, and ran out of allotments in 15 minutes, according to The Oregonian. “People compare it to getting tickets to a big rock show,” said Tom Gauntt, a Pacific Power spokesman. “We believe we have 75 good applicants.”
But now comes the bad news: some of the hidden costs of the program are coming out. The Oregon Public Utility Commission, which authored the program, held meetings as late as Monday with contractors and installers trying to explain all the ins and outs. For example, the monthly checks homeowners get from their utilities, at as much as 65 cents per kilowatt hour generated, are taxable. Also, solar systems have to be insured for $1 million, and an extra power meter is required, which costs $10 a month.
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Weeds a Cash Crop in African Village
Posted in July 5th, 2010
by Glenn Meyers in Uncategorized
Praise for Ghanaian Micro Business
Weeds rarely are welcome in the garden soil, especially if it happens to be a York, a tree-like weed that has been known to consume arable farm lands in Ghana. That’s when Muhammad Bin Abubkar saw an economic opportunity that could not only get rid of York weeds, but help generate a micro business to bring income to 800 people in the Ghanaian village of Teherye.
Let’s begin with the weed, called Broussonetia papyrifera, or York. It can consume arable land in a short time, growing 25-meter trees and a system of seeds and shoots that turns food-producing areas into wastelands. Ghanaians may once have called it Devil’s Teak, now they see it as a raw material that can bring income to the villagers of Techeyre, who operate a micro business making biodegradable matting that is used for erosion control and slope stabilization at the nearby gold mining operation.
This micro business jute mat operation was conceived by Abubakar, a dedicated Newmont Mining nursery manager who has left behind a large trail of good work, including growing a shaded forest where once there were only mining tailings. Bin, as he is known, says he learned of a way to use the tree when he worked at Newmont’s Indonesian operations.
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