EcoNewMexico.com

We all know that washing your car seems to bring on the rain. I've found another way to encourage precipitation, tour a Solar Photovoltaic System. After a sun-filled week the skies clouded over and unleashed a downpour about 30 minutes before I visited a friend's solar system. Despite the non-power producing weather, Bruce showed me his PV system and we climbed up on the roof during a lull in the showers. At least the solar panels were nice and clean!

1) The people of the Navajo Nation need jobs and electricity.
2) The Navajo Nation has great wind and solar resources.
3) The Navajo Reservation has highly polluted air due to existing coal-fired power plants.
4) A key air pollution permit for the proposed Desert Rock coal power plant has been remanded.
5) ?
6) The Navajo Nation's Diné Power Authority and Sithe Global Power are committed to moving forward with the Desert Rock Coal Power Plant.

At any trade show, it’s usually worth it to barge in to a random event, feel awkward for a moment in exchange for a free drink and a chance to encounter new perspectives. So after a long day of seminars at Greenbuild, I found myself making small talk among a group of well dressed facilities managers involved in the LEED for Existing Buildings side of things. This is actually a very important part of the sustainability equation, since the operational energy of a commercial building will surpass the embodied energy used to make that building a few years after the building opens.

What: Global New Energy Summit 2010
When: Sunday, March 21 through Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Where: Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino (15 miles north of Santa Fe)

Powdered donuts could be key to affordable, renewable power!

The phrase 'Smart Grid' has been thrown around quite a lot recently. Unfortunately, it isn't clear to many of us what a 'Smart Grid' actually is. Some folks at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque have built and are testing one of the first pieces of the future smart grid - a smart building. The Mechanical Engineering Building at UNM has a newly refurbished solar-thermal energy array that provides 90% of the building's heating needs and 35% of its cooling.

For a state with so much solar potential, New Mexico has realized very little actual solar power. PNM (the major electrical utility in NM) currently has about 1.4 megawatts of solar PV capacity, almost all of which is owned by individual customers. PNM owns two solar facilities, a 25kW solar PV system located in Algodones and a 5kW system in Aztec. With so little solar photovoltaic power in place, PNM's most recent proposal to limit privately-owned, grid-tied solar PV systems has the Renewable Energy Industry Association of New Mexico (REIA-NM) concerned.

Don't judge a book by it's cover, especially when the cover is this bad. Fortunately the book 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' by David JC MacKay is a much better book than its wrapping suggests. Professor McKay makes a case for, of all things, a fact and number-based energy policy. The idea that rational decision-making should drive energy policy shouldn't be a radical idea, but strangely enough it is.

What: Global New Energy Summit
When: March 22 - 24, 2009
Where: Buffalo Thunder Resort, Pojoaque, NM

When you think of sustainable architecture, energy efficiency and environmental awareness do you think of your local government? The Santa Fe County Board of Commissioners were thinking ahead to rising energy and building maintenance costs and departmental growth when they requested designs for a new Public Works Facility. The new Santa Fe Public Works Facility is a result of forward-thinking public servants and a sustainable architect coming together to build a campus designed for the long run.