Greener Dawn has gained access to a $360,000 training grant from the California Employment Training Panel to provide Building Performance Institute certification to local contractor firms who are Efficiency First members. Greener Dawn in conjunction with San Diego State University is launching the only local Building Performance Institute certification course in San Diego county on July 10th thru August 22nd. BPI is one of the key certifications recognized by the government for the proposed $6 billion Home Star program which offers up to $8,000 in energy efficiency rebates for homeowners. The grant allows for contractor firms to send employees to the SDSU course and receive a 50% rebate within 90 days of completion of the course. The cost of the course is $2,500 with $1,250 being reimbursed to the contractor firm.
“ Home Star will jumpstart this Residential Energy Efficiency Revolution and implement the proper infrastructure,” says President of Greener Dawn, Courtland Weisleder. “It starts with quality education and training through Building Performance Institute certification. This grant is a great opportunity for local workers to become BPI certified and participate in the upcoming Home Star program at the lowest price in the industry.”
Efficiency First – “The proposed HOME STAR energy retrofit program is among several economic initiatives President Obama highlighted this week in an open message to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. The June 12 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls for “swift action on several critical priorities that will give our Nation’s small businesses added impetus to hire and grow and address the devastating economic impact of budget cuts at the state and local levels that are leading to massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters.”
The letter describes the President’s priorities as follows (emphasis ours):
‘The small business legislation that I have called for includes a new lending initiative to help creditworthy firms access loans through community banks and innovative state partnerships. It also calls for the complete elimination of capital gains on small business investments so that small business owners have even greater incentives to expand and create good jobs in their communities. Also important are proposals to bolster our infrastructure and create clean energy jobs here in the United States, including the Home Star program of rebates for home improvements and additional tax credits for clean energy manufacturing here in America, both of which have the potential to unlock private sector investment. All of these targeted, temporary measures are directed at spurring private investment and are cost-effective ways of spurring job creation.’”
Greener Dawn has aligned with Efficiency First, the BIA (Building Industry of America), and NARI (National Association of the Remodeling Industry) as we strive to push the residential energy efficiency industry down this homestretch to HomeStar. As a special thank you to the three associations for their hard work in promoting energy efficiency in residential homes, Greener Dawn will be offering a $50 discount on BPI Training to all Efficiency First, BIA and NARI members.
Greener Dawn has become a Capitol Circle Member of Efficiency First, a national nonprofit trade association that unites the Home Performance workforce, building product manufacturers and related businesses and organizations in the escalating fight against global warming and rising energy costs. Efficiency First represents its members in public policy discussions at the state and national levels, to promote the benefits of efficiency retrofitting and to help our industry grow to meet unprecedented demand for quality residential energy improvements. In addition to our membership, Greener Dawn’s President Courtland Weisleder will serve on the Business Model National Committee as well as the San Diego Chapter Sterling Committee.
Greener Dawn has become a member of BIA (Building Industry of America), a non-profit trade association that represents the employees and firms associated with the Residential Sector. From government lobbying to local market trends, the BIA helps shape the growing residential sector with their influence and experience. The BIA has a dedicated workforce researching government policies, which will prove invaluable detailing the benefits of the HomeStar legislation. Greener Dawn is also a sponsor at the NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) even in Santa Fe, New Mexico through August 4th-7th so check back here for more details on this huge industry event.
NARI (National Association of the Remodeling Industry) is the largest Association in the remodeling industry, a key aspect to the energy efficient retrofits BPI Certified Professionals will be performing on houses. NARI’s mission is to promote and advance the professionalism, products and vital public purpose of residential remodeling. Greener Dawn is very proud to become a member and nationwide sponsor of NARI. We will also be providing a online webinar to their member base this month so check in soon for more details.
Visit www.bpitrainingnow.com and Call Today (858) 345-1390 to get your Code for $50 Off!
A revised version of the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010 (S. 3434) was introduced in the United States Senate yesterday. Home Star, the legislative proposal designed to create a U.S. energy retrofit rebate program, recently passed through similar legislation (H.R. 5019) by the United States House of Representatives on May 6, 2010 by a vote of 26 to 161.
Co-sponsored by 16 senators, this bill is now being examined by the Administration, the Senate leadership and the Senate Finance Committee
BPI personnel certification and company accreditation credentials – along with many BPI national technical standards – are cited in the draft legislation for the Home Star Act of 2010.
Economic Advantages
Save U.S. consumers money on energy bills
Put construction workers back to work by creating ~168,000 jobs in an industry with a 25% unemployment rate
Provide new opportunities for certified contractors and other skilled workers
Energy and Environmental Advantages
Cut consumer energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Reduce America’s dependency on foreign oil
Improve America’s energy security
Home Star incentives include the Gold Star and Silver Star Rebate Programs. The Silver Star program provides incentives ranging from $50 to $1,500 for various prescriptive energy efficiency improvement measures. The Gold Star program follows a performance-based path for incentives, offering $3,000 for a 20% improvement in a home’s energy efficiency and an additional $1,000 for each additional 5% reduction, capped at $8,000 or 50% of the total retrofit cost (including the cost of audit and diagnostic procedures).
Sen. Snowe (R-ME): “Energy efficiency has been identified as the most cost effective method to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, cut carbon emissions, and save money for consumers on their energy bills. Home Star catalyzes energy efficiency into action and includes long-term tax incentives to make their homes state of the art … I appreciate the leadership of Senators Bingaman, Warner, and Graham and look forward to working with them to enact this proposal into law.”
“SACRAMENTO – The California Energy Commission approved $10.7 million to the
Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to create clean jobs, save energy
and reduce greenhouse gas emissions with residential energy retrofit
measures. Funding for this program comes from the federal America Recovery
and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
The comprehensive community-scale building retrofit program, called Retrofit
Bay Area, is targeting up to 15,000 single-family and 2,000 multi-family
residences for energy efficiency upgrades. The multi county program is
expected to create more than 1,700 jobs, save 58,000 megawatt hours (enough
to power about 116,000 homes for a month) and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 20,053 tons each year. Additionally, Retrofit Bay Area is
leveraging the $10.7 million into more than $184 million of public and
private funds.
“This is an exemplary program that will continue to offer important energy
efficiency savings and job growth opportunities to California homeowners
long into the future,” said Anthony Eggert, Commissioner, California Energy
Commission. “Energy Efficiency investments in your home are an investment in
California’s energy future increasing our energy security, promoting
economic growth and improving the environment.”
Investing in green workforce training programs and developing trained
workers is key to the success of the ARRA programs. California has many
currently unemployed, skilled housing industry workers who, with training
can make vital contributions to the state’s clean energy sector.”
For the full news release, visit http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2010_releases/2010-05-27_ABAG_stimulus_award.html
While Lowering Energy Costs for Cash-Strapped Homeowners
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, working with a bipartisan coalition of colleagues including Senators Olympia Snowe, Mark Warner and Lindsey Graham, today introduced revised legislation which will create an estimated 168,000 direct new jobs while promoting home energy efficiency. The bill is cosponsored by 16 senators and builds upon similar legislation that Sen. Bingaman introduced in March. Sen. Bingaman and the bill’s other sponsors will be working with the Administration, Senate leadership and Senate Finance Committee to identify offsets for funding authorized in the bill.
Called Home Star, the fast-acting program is designed to drive new private investment into the hard-hit construction and manufacturing sectors while saving consumers money on their energy bills. It provides strong short-term incentives for energy efficiency improvements in residential buildings to help spark more construction hiring and benefit home-improvement retailers, while also helping homeowners lower their utility costs and reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
Home energy retrofits are popular for their job generating potential in the depressed construction industry as well as for their energy savings benefits. A sizable coalition of leaders from the construction industry, energy efficiency and clean energy groups and labor organizations are backing efforts to expand the residential retrofit program in the bipartisan energy bill (the American Clean Energy Leadership Act, S. 1462) which the Energy Committee reported last year.
Sen. Bingaman (D-NM): “Home Star is a comprehensive and compelling proposal to address one of the most important opportunities we have to boost private sector employment and demand for durable goods while cutting both consumer energy costs and greenhouse gases. As Congress considers additional ways to shore up our economic recovery and to accelerate new hiring, I hope this bill’s broad impact and support help it become law.”
Sen. Snowe (R-ME): “Energy efficiency has been identified as the most cost effective method to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, cut carbon emissions, and save money for consumers on their energy bills. Home Star catalyzes energy efficiency into action and includes long-term tax incentives to make their homes state of the art. With Mainers spending the most per capita on residential energy expenditures and living in the least efficient housing stock in the country, I am encouraged that this proposal will spur an industry that will be dedicated to improving America’s energy security. I appreciate the leadership of Senators Bingaman, Warner, and Graham and look forward to working with them to enact this proposal into law.”
Greener Dawn, the nationwide leader in Residential Energy Efficiency services for Energy Auditors and Home Performance Contractors, is launching the first online BPI Fast Track training course to be taken day or night- 24 hours a day. BPI Accreditation is important because it is required for home performance contractors who participate in the Gold Star portion of the pending Homestar bill. Accreditation will also most likely satisfy requirements for other municipal and state rebate programs like PACE in California and throughout the nation. The BPI course includes:
- 30 hours of lectures covering 12 chapters
- 12 quizzes
- 1 Practice Final Exam
- A 2 page GD Study Guide
- 90 minutes of field training
- Access to the GD Network with 1 sales lead and 1 month of the GD Convertor
Relative amounts of land needed to be covered by fuel crops to generate enough supply for US use. Copyright Greener Dawn Research
While corn ethanol dominates the current biofuel market, the future of clean liquid-energy looks more likely to be found floating on ponds than growing in fields.
Algae-derived biofuels have garnered a lot of attention and investment over the past year due to their potential market-disrupting economics, even if they have become more common in research labs.
“We estimate the pricing of our diesel products at as little as $30 per barrel,” says Bill Sims, CEO of Joule Biotechnologies, a bioengineering firm focusing on the renewable biofuels market. “The big prize is to be competitive with fossil fuels, not with other biofuels.”
How It Works
His firm’s “Helioculture” technology takes their genetically engineered organisms—to protect their intellectual property they won’t name them, but Sims says they are “algae-like”—and exposes them to sunlight and carbon dioxide in what look like solar panels.
The organisms then secrete diesel, along with other usable chemicals.
Sims is aiming high. He estimates his technology can take a large share of potential $1-trillion markets in diesel and related chemicals.
“The reality is there are going to be several winners in this space,” he says. “But we’re well ahead.”
While it comes from a non-fossil-fuel source, Joule’s process produces diesel, not biodiesel, Sims notes with emphasis.
Joule’s diesel is chemically the same as fossil-fuel diesel, he says, which means it can go straight into the engines now powering the nation’s commercial vehicle fleet and get a similar energy output as fossil fuel-derived diesel.
Biodiesel usually needs to be blended with fossil fuels and can require modifications to some engines.
“Biodiesel faces additional challenges and has a substantially smaller market opportunity than a direct ‘drop-in’ replacement for petroleum-derived diesel,” says Sims. “There’s high value in the ability to make liquid hydrocarbons that are fungible.”
He adds that compatibility allows Joule’s diesel to use the same storage and distribution methods as fossil fuel diesel.
Host Of Advantages
As a fuel crop, algae stacks up well against other biofuel feedstocks currently in production or in development.
A report from cleantech research firm Greener Dawn on the sector says most algael biofuels firms working on products now expect to get 4,000 to 6,000 gallons of fuel per acre.
Joule’s Sims says his firm is targeting annual output of 15,000 gallons per acre.
By comparison, corn-based ethanol produces about 400 gallons of fuel per acre, its cellulosic ethanol counterpart up to 800 gallons per acre and soybean biodiesel a mere 40 gallons per acre, according to research from Sandia National Laboratories cited in Greener Dawn’s report.
“This is several orders of magnitude larger than anything being used today for either ethanol or biodiesel,” says George Santana of Greener Dawn.
Algae’s growth cycle is much shorter than that of corn, soy or other biofuel sources, and like cellulosic ethanol that uses grasses and agricultural waste, it also doesn’t compete in the agrifood market for its feedstock.
Algae also requires less water—for growth and for processing—and less handling by heavy, fossil-fuel-burning equipment in being harvested and processed.
Santana points out that the basic process for mass production of algae isn’t new, either.
Companies like Martek Biosciences [MATK 22.96 -0.05 (-0.22%)] grow algae for specialized pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement use, and Santana says you can expect to see these firms try to leverage that knowledge in the biofuels market.
(Martek received a $10-million investment from British oil giant BP [BP 60.608 1.128 (+1.9%)]
last year for biofuel research.)
Shell, Chevron [CHV 59.69 -0.20 (-0.33%)], ConocoPhillips [COP 57.305 0.665 (+1.17%)] and ExxonMobil [XOM 69.02 0.79 (+1.16%)] are all exploring algae-based fuel.
But despite the promise of the sector, don’t expect cheap algae-based fuels overnight, says Santana.
The top eight companies that his firm has identified in the sector have attracted over $350 million in capital over the past three years, he says, and all of them have aggressive commercialization dates for their technologies, ranging from this year through 2013.
“We’re probably five to ten years away from any kind of scale in algae,” he says. “The media is a little bit ahead of where companies are as far as production.”
Obstacles And Disadvantages
Few large-scale production plants exist yet, and producing a fuel with the consistency both in quality and quantity of an oil refinery isn’t simple.
Copyright Joule Biotechnology
The industry also needs to get Washington on its side. Currently, algael biofuels aren’t eligible for tax breaks and subsidies going to other biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol.
“The biggest problem is they don’t have tax parity with other biofuels,” says Garvin Jabusch, chief investment officer at investment firm Green Alpha Advisors.
He adds that any “anti-algae” bias is more likely due to the rapid growth of the sector than to any political meddling.
“It’s just an oversight,” he says. “Their scale is so small. But if they get parity, it’ll unlock a lot of capital.”
With the combined potential of dramatically cheaper production costs and huge scalability, algae-produced biofuels may have the clean energy market’s brightest future.
“Our research leads us to believe that algae has the potential to revolutionize the field of biofuels,” says Greener Dawn’s Santana. “Unlike previous promises from the corn, sugar cane and soybean lobbies, algae have the potential to make a significant impact [on] countries’ dependence on foreign oil imports.”
And while the race between competing biofuels has some lengths to go, analysts advise putting too much faith in the early leaders.
“The [biofuels] that compete with food crops are in the lead right now,” says Jabusch. “I think they’ll fall to a mix of cellulosic ethanol and algae fuels.”
The Green Chamber of San Diego County invites you to join us for our “Green is Everyone’s Business” kick off celebration at Belly Up Tavern on Tuesday, April 13.
In keeping with our commitment to “connect, collaborate and educate,” the evening will feature networking opportunities and a presentation by Stone Brewing Co.’s CEO Greg Koch on his company’s sustainability efforts. Guests will also enjoy a sampling of foods from local green restaurants, caterers and retailers.
DATE: April 13, 2010
TIME: 5:30 to 8 p.m.
LOCATION: The Belly Up Tavern
143 South Cedros Avenue
Solana Beach, CA 92075
Registration is $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Register online before April 10, and you’ll become eligible to win a free membership to the Green Chamber.
