Monday, May 01, 2006

Clean air, clean energy, and other assorted news

The American Lung Association recently released a report stating that the air quality in the United States has improved over the last decade. Of course Los Angeles is still considered one of the worst areas, in term of clean air. The ALA basically looked at the number of days in which the air was considered unhealthy to breathe. The east coast of the US showed the most improvement even though Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC are still listed among the worst places to live when it comes to air quality. The director for the ALA's national policy stated that while the report was encouraging, that the US still had room for improvement.

Speaking of the East Coast, Washington Township in New Jersey is considering solar power. Officials state that installing solar panels on the flagship school could reduce their energy by 70% and even generate a bit of revenue (normally done by selling extra power to the electric company). How much is their bill? Their bill last year was $389,000 USD and they expect costs to rise 11% during the next two years. The only thing holding them back is the $2.4 Million USD that it would cost for the project. Even so, they have applied to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities which has a clean energy program.

The Hydrogenics Corporation has announced that GM has followed up their last order with another. What is this for? The company provides fuel cell testing services.

However, this article states that, `Hydrogen fuel far from ready for prime time.' The usual list of infrastructure, manufacturing costs, etc are raised. Those of us who follow this and are aware of history know that nothing comes into being without some sort of growing pains. The real question is what are consumers willing to do and pay for?

Now that does not mean that people and communities cannot come together in other ways to reduce greenhouse gases.

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