As part of its Green Infrastructure initiative, WMSA has worked to support collaborative efforts to develop alternative fuels and energy in West Michigan. One of those efforts is the development of wind turbines, which would be both a new business opportunity and a move toward greener energy.

However, such development takes time. As Greg Northrup points out in his comment in recent coverage, before placing wind turbines offshore  on Lake Michigan it is important to be certain that they will be productive in terms of energy supply for the region.

You can read more in the Capitol News Service report carried  in the Great Lakes Echo blog (the story was also carried in several newspapers from West Michigan, including the Traverse City Record Eagle.

Long term, alternative energy innovation must be balanced with preserving the unique and highly valued aesthetics of West Michigan’s natural environment, Northrup said. WMSA will continue to seek collaborative ideas in keeping with one of the organization’s original priorities: to ensure a sustainable environment.

Birgit Klohs of the Right Place has a nice blog post on MLive about the efforts in West Michigan to seize opportunities in alternative energy. We encourage you to read it for some good news about the region’s prospects in this economic sector and environmental effort.

Also, if you want background on this topic, read the Alternative and Renewable Energy Cluster Analysis that was published in December 2007.

Sustainability can take a while to set in motion, and yet it is so rewarding. I’m home with pneumonia, so I’m going through old paperwork and checking email while sitting in bed. Nothing like breaking down all your energy bills to see what the local trends are. Good times!

But I’m finding that the pieces are coming together. The life piece. The work piece.

Last week, I submitted a poster design for a sustainability contest. Okay, so, my poster was not as well-designed as I’d like it to be (it’s good that I’m in Poster Design class with Nancy this semester!)

But the poster was created with solar power. Yes, the electricity used to make the poster on the computer came from the sun (on our house!). It’s really exciting that the values we committed to in March of 2006 are bearing fruit in such a meaningful way. We had to scrimp on other stuff to make the big payment, but it was really worth it. I love how all these little decisions in our lives build up to be a way of being, of moving in the world, that we can feel good about.

When we bought the panels, with the help of our state energy office, we calculated that it would take 20 years for them to pay for themselves. Based on the way our electric prices have gone up since we got them, my projections show them cleaning up in a tidy 8 years. Not bad.

Of course I also hope that my design skillz improve too. I submitted the poster not because I think I’ll win, but because I have a strong belief about contests. It’s kind of like the way I see world-changing overall. If you want to see the product of it, you have to get involved.

I love design books. I love seeing what other people are doing. If I want others to send their work, I send mine too. I don’t win much. It’s about participation.

For a full size file of image, follow link below

The project Exposition is a significant event in the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program. This event is free and open to the public.

If you would like to know more about the program, please view the project wiki at: http://learn2teach.pbwiki.com/ This wiki has been written by the participants of the program, inner city youth from many of the neighborhoods of Boston. In it, they explain their projects, and use the wiki to store information about how to work with computer programming, music composition, digital imagery, alternative energy and digital fabrication.

For three weeks at the start of the summer, returning youth teachers and first year youth teachers trained each other in each of the above learning modules, a continuation of the training process begun during the Spring during Saturday learning sessions.

For the second three weeks of the Summer, all the youth teachers work on two complimentary projects: The first is teaching elementary and middle school aged youth in 18 community centers in Boston. The second is a group project in which four or five youth leaders work to create a solution employing many of the learning modules listed above to demonstrate how the community could benefit from their design research.

If you would like to know more about the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program, please visit the following links:

Full size image of the invitation – Link

Wiki – http://learn2teach.pbwiki.com/
Blog – http://l2ttl2.wordpress.com/
Flickr account – http://www.flickr.com/photos/28629285@N02/
Flickr group – http://www.flickr.com/groups/721032@N24/pool/
Facebook Event Page – Link

solar conversion of water to hydrogen and oxygen

Scientists at MIT are working on creating a human made version of Photosynthesis. This will allow for us to generate more electricity from the sun than we currently can. At this time, their hope is to use the electricity to split water molecules into two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.

They intend to use the separated gasses like a battery, combining them later and using the resulting electricity hydrogen as needed. The electricity could be used in the home or in a plug in automobile.

Article in Technology Review: Link

Printable version of the article: Link

MIT News Article: Link

Video: Link

What’s way more chic and totally hip than the Royal Family and an Aston Martin that runs on British wine? ANSWER: The Democratic National Convention and its GM FlexFuel vehicles running on recycled Coors?

Yes, the DNC is powering all their official vehicles with E85 ethanol fuel made from Molson Coors Brewery’s leftover beer. LINK [via link]

How are the Glacier County Commissioners going to spend nearly $190,000 in Wind Generation Impact Fees they received from NaturEner USA in April? The commissioners’ agenda indicated they were going to approve allocation of the fees on Monday, June 9, but the commissioners tabled any decision until Glacier County Attorney Larry Epstein could attend the meeting. Epstein is out of the office this week.

Read more…