Organic Valley announced in late October that it would be transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy by 2019 – an announcement that is significant not only for the dairy co-op but also for trends in growing renewable energy nationwide.

The company’s solar solution is the result of several years of work, beginning with the installation of a five-megawatt wind farm in the Wisconsin, where the co-op is headquartered, back in 2012.

While this farm was originally intended to help Organic Valley reach 100 percent renewable energy right off the bat, the co-op grew to such an extent between the planning and the construction phases that the farm was only able to account for a percentage of its energy use. The Organic Valley team knew that it would need to make a bigger investment if it hoped to reach 100 percent renewable energy while continuing to grow its business.

The company thus decided to collaborate with OneEnergy Renewables, a developer of community-and utility-scale solar energy projects, to meet its goal. Together with Upper Midwest Municipal Energy Group, the companies created a partnership to develop new solar facilities in Wisconsin and bring total new installations to about 29 MW – more than twice what Organic Valley actually needed to reach its 100 percent renewable energy goal.

“There’s demand from the utilities within our region for up to 30 megawatts worth of electricity from solar, and our need is a little under 13 megawatts,” explains Jonathan Reinbold, Sustainability, Research & Grants Manager at Organic Valley.

In other words, Organic Valley is not actually building new solar facilities, but rather committing to a regular renewable energy purchase, thus encouraging the construction of such facilities by third party builders.

“In order to make it financially viable for the project owner, there needs to be some additional financial incentive,” explains Reinbold. “That’s where we come in, as an anchor buyer of electricity.”

Thanks to this project, then, not only will Organic Valley be transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy, but it will also be providing renewable energy credits to the state, lowering the cost of power for Wisconsin residents and increasing the state’s overall solar energy use by 15 percent.

“There’s an argument to be made that without Organic Valley, these Wisconsin utilities never would have been able to attract the necessary capital investments to add solar to their grids,” explains New Food Economy.

Organic Valley joins the likes of Whole Foods, Lego, and Google in making such a commitment. If it succeeds, it will be the largest food company in the world to do so, according to Rocky Mountain Institute, becoming an important role model for other companies looking to help normalize renewable energy in the U.S.

And the buck doesn’t stop here for Organic Valley.

While this commitment pertains only to the co-op’s office buildings, processing facilities, and distribution centers, Organic Valley is also helping its 2,000 farms, present in 36 states, to transition to renewable energy. Some 220 of the co-ops farms have already installed solar panels, and Organic Valley is working not only to increase that number to 50 percent in the next few years, but also to encourage farmers to take other steps towards reducing their fossil fuel impact, by producing biofuel on-site, for example.

“It’s part of our mission as an organization,” says Reinbold – and it’s one more reason to support this pioneer of organic, grass-fed dairy in the United States.

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Learn about this tiny island’s renewable energy legacy.

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When it comes to green energy, it might be time we looked north for inspiration; in British Columbia, an increase in the production and use of clean, renewable energy has invigorated the local economy, not to mention the green energy industry.

British Columbia has long been a leader in the field, but it wasn’t until the Clean Energy Act was signed into law on June 3, 2010, that BC’s clean energy initiatives truly took the lead in North America.

The law detailed several goals for the province, including electric self-sufficiency by 2016, a clean and renewable energy target of 93 percent (the highest in North America), specific electricity exportation goals, and mandated reductions of greenhouse gases.

The progressive law is the product of the government’s long-standing commitment to clean energy, laying the foundation for what has now become the reality in BC: a renewable, green energy industry that is an economic, environmental, and socio-political driver in the province.

Green Energy Creates Jobs and Boosts the Economy

Clean Energy BC is a 25-year-old association that calls itself “the voice of British Columbia’s Clean Energy industry.” Executive director Paul Kariya claims that their operations are responsible for more than $8.6 billion in investments, as well as about 16,000 construction jobs across the province.

And those numbers are only increasing. The 160 members of Clean Energy BC currently produce 14 percent of BC Hydro’s energy supply via thermal, hydro, solar, and wind power, helping the province approach its alternative energy goals.

Green Energy Can Have Socio-Political Benefits

First Nations communities, suffering from the collapse of the oil market, have found a new niche in the BC green energy industry.

While oil producers and transporters continuously neglect to consult with First Nations people, for example with regards to the controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, intended to bring Alberta oil to the BC coast, renewable energy producers have sought to create an important bond with these communities.

“Over the course of a decade, clean power producers have forged deep relationships with indigenous leaders,” Kariya told CTV News.

The Clean Energy Act made the First Nations Clean Energy Business Fund possible, not only promoting dialogue about this important issue but also increasing First Nations community participation in the sector.

The People of British Columbia Continue to Fight for Green Energy

But perhaps the biggest thing that we can learn from BC is that the fight is never over. Even with these laws in place, the people of BC never stop demanding for more: more awareness, more accountability, and more responsibility.

In May 2016, members of the Climate Leadership Team published a demand in the Times Colonist for BC to increase its efforts by bolstering its carbon tax and strengthening climate leadership. If these demands are met, BC could create a projected 270,000 new jobs within the next 10 years, all thanks to the green energy industry.

“If the provincial government heeds the advice of its own Climate Leadership Team, then we’re going to need plenty of clean electricity,” said Kariya. “We’re ready to deliver the goods.”

Although BC had been taking steps toward a cleaner, more progressive energy policy for years before the CEA was signed, having a true, complex piece of legislation, as opposed to a handful of regulations and good intentions, has helped to make British Columbia one of the most progressive clean energy locales in the world. The work being done by the people and government of the province are inspirational for states and provinces throughout North America.

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Most of the 7,000 islands in the Philippines have little to no access to electricity; when engineer Aisa Mijeno discovered this, she decided to team up with her brother Raphael and create a solution–a sustainable lamp that ran on a renewable, easy-to-find resource, in this case, a salt water battery.

The team created SALt, a lamp that doesn’t require electricity or extra batteries. Pre-equipped with a galvanic cell battery with two electrodes, the lamp is activated by the electrolytes in saltwater. All users need are two tablespoons of salt and a glass of water — or a bit of seawater, which many living in the Philippines have access to in abundance — to have light for eight hours.

Image: SALt

Mijeno sensed a particular need for this technology in the Philippines, which ranked 13th for risks from impacts of global warming in the 2016 Climate Change Vulnerability Index and also still has 25 coal-fired power plants nationwide and only 2 percent of zero-emission energy. As a volunteer living with the Butbut tribe in Buscalan, Kalinga in 2011, Mijeno saw just how devastating this lack of electricity was on the local population.

“People did not have access to electricity and had to walk 12 hours to reach Bontoc, a town about 50 kilometers away, to get kerosene for their fuel-based lamps,” she told Tech in Asia. Kerosene is dangerous, inefficient, and expensive; according to the World Bank, breathing kerosene fumes is as toxic as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

Mijeno’s idea to solve this problem involved taking advantage of a relatively old technology, dating back to the 19th century.

“If you did the lemon-battery experiment, that’s basically it,” says Mijeno. “Two different metals submerged in electrolytes will produce electricity. For us, we used saltwater.”

But while a renewable salt water battery lamp seems like the ideal solution to this problem, a recent article from Inquirer.net challenged earlier reports about the innovation, which focused on the renewable components of the battery — the salt and the water — and not on the battery itself, particularly the metal anode that needs to be replaced every six months. For the battery to be truly renewable, a system of recycling will need to be established for these anodes, something Mijeno addressed briefly with Inquirer.net.

“After using the lamp, there will be a lump of metal,” she said. “You can still use it, melt it out and produce another consumable for the lamp.”

She even highlighted the ways in which this downfall could be an advantage in creating employment in this part of the world. “There will be communities that will gather up the consumable to be delivered to our site in Biñan, which we will be able to recycle into a useful anode system.”

Mijeno pitched the idea to Ideaspace Foundation in 2013, where it was accepted. It subsequently won several awards for innovation, including most recently the Development Communication 10 Hildegarde Awards in 2016, and was recognized at the Apec summit last November by Barack Obama. But little has been said about it since this summer, and this may be due to a variety of issues.

The first is price: the lamp is priced at $35 – quite high for poor families. Mijeno has said the company is working on improving the lamp’s durability past the current 10 to 11 years to make the investment worthwhile.

Another issue has to do with raising money for such a project. “There is a certain degree of difficulty when it comes to achieving financials enough to sustain and to scale a social enterprise and/or a hardware startup,” she says. Without proper funding, the prototype cannot be further developed nor can the product be marketed on a large scale.

Mijeno’s lack of experience in the milieu may also play some role. “I was asked about my marketing strategy and business model,” she told Tech in Asia. “I honestly answered I had zero knowledge on that side, and what I had was born out of compassion for the people I met during my travels.”

But it may just be this passion that saves the project. Mijeno told Inquirer.net that she is interested in help from experts to turn this lamp prototype into the renewable energy tool of the future that it promises to be, so that she can make it available to NGOs and partner foundations, who will hope get it to families in the Philippines and across the globe. While it is initially being conceived as an emergency energy source, it may just be the beginning of a new form of renewable energy for us all.

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How’s this for cannabis news? When cannabis can be used to power batteries and potentially rewrite modern energy, using the plant just to get high may prove to be one of its least impressive benefits.

According to engineering professor David Mitlin of Clarkson University in New York, industrial hemp, which is the non-psychoactive cannabis sister to marijuana, can be used to create “extremely efficient batteries” called supercapacitors.

But before all the tech talk ruins your buzz, listen up. It’s actually pretty simple: heating hemp fibers essentially rearranges the plant’s carbon atoms, which creates super thin two-dimensional sheets (nanonsheets), which work like electrodes to conduct electricity. Like, woah, man.

The research follows in the steps of studies on grapheme, which apparently holds the same ability to create nanonsheets and was being looked at to build better solar cells, water filtration systems, touch-screen technology, as well as batteries and supercapacitors. The problem is it’s expensive, the American Chemical Society reported in a press release. But cannabis proved to be not only more efficient than grapheme (a bunch of carbon atoms), but also about 1,000 times less expensive—which is super exciting because that means there’s now more money to buy the other cannabis plant and the ensuing Doritos and Twizzlers.

“Our device’s electrochemical performance is on par with or better than graphene-based devices,” Mitlin said in the ACS press release. “The key advantage is that our electrodes are made from biowaste using a simple process, and therefore, are much cheaper than graphene.”

According to Miltin, hemp supercaps “could largely transform the way electronics are powered going forward.” The technology could mean instant charging abilities—plugging a mobile phone into the wall for mere seconds before it’s completely charged. The thrill of that prospect is enough to get us high and keep us buzzing until the cannabis batteries hit the market.

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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As the global environmental crises dawns upon us, renewable energy models are taking center stage.

Around the world conversation is swirling concerning what we, as a global society, will do to combat the negative effects of climate change and become less dependent on oil and other fuels to power our energy needs. Fortunately, renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly more fashionable and economical around the world. Here are 10 facts about renewable energy you may not know.

Renewable energy is any energy derived from natural processes, such as sunlight and wind. They are replenished faster than they are consumed, hence “renewable”. Some forms of renewable energy include solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass. They’ve been around for quite some time but are only picking up steam recently, when the world has found itself in a position where it has no other choice but to embrace renewable technologies. The following 10 fun facts about renewable energy highlight its growth, efficiency, and effectiveness.

1. Renewable Energy creates three-times more jobs than fossil fuels.
2. Fossil fuels have received 75-times more subsidies than clean energy.
3. Renewable energy is expected to jump to 25 percent of global gross power generation in 2018, a rise on 20 percent in 2011 and 19 percent in 2006.
4. One wind turbine is able to generate enough electricity to power up to 300 homes.
5. Within a 5-year period, Portugal’s electric grid jumped from 15 percent to 45 percent renewables.
6. If taken advantage of to its fullest extent, sunlight that beams on the earth for one hour could meet world energy demands for an entire year.
7. Europe and North Africa could run on 100% renewable energy by 2050.
8. In 2009, China built about one windmill per hour.
9. Solar photovoltaic may account for 5 percent of global power demand by 2020, and up to 9 percent by 2030.
10. West Virginia is able to replace all its electrical capacity with a mere 2% of its geothermal potential.

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If you live in Louisiana you likely use twice as much electricity as a New Yorker, according to a recent article in the Huffington Post. Maps created from data at the U.S. Energy Information Administration show electricity use and cost by state. How much does electricity cost in your neck of the woods?

How Much Does Electricity Cost By State?

The maps measured price per capita and electricity usage of energy converted from coal, natural gas, or renewable sources. My state, South Carolina, for example, is among the highest in energy consumption per residential utility customer (kWh) along with Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee, and most of the Southeastern U.S. The Northeast on the other hand, including Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York along with Hawaii and Alaska had the lowest usage.

Not sure how much electricity costs in your state? Take a look at this map.

The cost of electricity per capita seemed to be a big motivator. Electricity costs in the north were consistently among the highest in the nation including states like Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. While states like West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and California had the lowest energy costs.

As of 2009, the residential sector became the largest consumer of electricity at 39.6 percent followed by the commercial sector at 35.7 percent and the industrial sector at 24.5 percent. In all, residential energy generates 21 percent of CO2 emissions in the U.S. (twice as much as your car).

Wanna reduce your impact? It’s easier than you think wherever you are considering that 50 percent of U.S. consumers have access to alternative sources of energy. Many power companies offer what’s called green pricing which allows customers to pay a small premium for energy generated from renewable sources. And even if renewable energy isn’t available in your area you can buy green certificates that contribute to the generation of clean energy.

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As a South Carolinian I’m not afraid to admit that my state is behind the curve when it comes to solar power. In fact, The Interstate Renewable Energy Council rated South Carolina along with only four other states with D and F grades for progress on the use of renewable energy. But my state is about to open its eyes to solar power thanks to a new piece of legislation that just passed the South Carolina House of Representatives with a vote of 105-0. The final version will soon hit Gov. Nikki Haley’s desk for a signature.

“This is truly a big deal, a giant step in moving South Carolina forward in renewable energy,’’ state Rep. Robert Brown, D-Charleston, said.

The solar power bill has the support of both the utilities and conservation groups after two years of heated negotiations. South Carolina currently depends almost entirely on coal, nuclear power, and natural gas. This new legislation pushes utility companies to increase the use of solar power. By 2021, utilities must get 2 percent of power from the sun, which puts the state in line with other southern states.

Currently, there are only about 7 megawatts of solar power installed in the state, but this new law could increase that number to 300 megawatts. The bill also allows third party leasing, which lowers the cost of solar panel installation for both people and businesses.

Lawmakers are still deciding how utility companies will credit both people and businesses for installing solar panels without cutting into utility power profit.

According to The State, “The legislation also sharply raises one of the nation’s most restrictive caps on the use of solar power by businesses and universities. The cap would be 1 megawatt, instead of the current 100 kilowatt limit for nonresidential solar energy.”

While my state is still miles behind when it comes to renewables, this is a slow but steady step in the right direction.

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Known as “green gold” in Turkey, green builders are looking into using pistachio shells for clean energy to heat Turkey’s new eco-city.

Pistachios are downright delectable, whether as a classic ice cream flavor or as a main ingredient in baklava. But there’s much more to these salty treats than just their gastronomical applications.

Officials in Turkey are planning the country’s first sustainable city and they’re considering burning pistachio shells for biogas to heat both the public and private buildings. The new city, named Gaziatep, will potentially house 200,000 people and it will be located 6 miles from the province’s capitol (also named Gaziatep).

It’s all about utilizing the renewable resources that you have on hand and in an area that produces 6,800 tons of the nut annually, the shells need a better end game than simply turning into waste.

“We thought the ecological city could be heated by burning pistachio shells because when you plan such environment-friendly systems, you take a look at natural resources you have,” said Seda Muftuoglu Gulec, a green building expert for the municipality on AFP.

What’s Biogas?

Biogas is also known as biomethane and it’s a product of anaerobic digestion of organic matter. A solid waste like pistachio shells is then upgraded to a purity standard that makes it safe enough to use as a source of clean energy. It can be used to provide electricity and heat as well as fueling cars. This pistachio shell biogas could provide up to 60 percent of the city’s heating needs.

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Wind farms may be an environmentally friendly source of power, but the renewable energy came at a high price for Wyoming’s Duke Energy Renewables, which was fined $1 million last month for killing birds.

Duke Energy Renewables pleaded guilty in the deaths of more than 160 birds—14 of which were golden eagles—as a result of impact with the company’s wind turbines between 2009 and 2013, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the case against Duke marks the first-ever criminal conviction for a renewable energy company under the act, which was established in 1918 to protect more than 1,000 species of birds.

According to the Justice Department, Duke failed to make “all efforts to build the projects in a way that would reduce the risk of bird deaths, despite a warning from the Fish and Wildlife Service,” reports the Times. The company claims that it built the wind turbines  prior to federally established regulations on turbines (which went into effect in 2012). But the Justice Department said the wind turbine regulations didn’t matter because the company was still in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act by killing the birds.

The company says it is working to install radar technology to help detect birds near the turbines so that the company can shut them down temporarily if necessary.

In a statement following the guilty plea by Duke, the federal government warned wind turbine companies to make sure research is done on the possible effects on birds, because, “at the present time, no post-construction remedies” exist to make the turbines safe for birds. Despite the setback, renewable energy is a necessary step forward in helping to reduce our impact on the environment so that it’s safer for humans. And birds.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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