Oregon beer company embraces solar power

Lucky Labrador Brewing Company, based in Portland, OR has been using solar energy for the past year to heat water used in the brewing process, according to an article in Scientific American.

The brewers use solar heated water in the first stage of the brewing process. During this stage, malted barley and other grains are steeped at temperatures around 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The heated water extracts sugars from the grains which are fermented by yeast later in the process.

Unfortunately, 100% of the entire brewing process cannot be powered by the sun, because one stage requires boiling water. The solar installation at the Lucky Labrador brewery can only heat water to 180 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees short of the boiling point.

The solar installation cost $70,000 up front, though the brewery recovered all but $6,000 of that investment through various tax credits and opportunity grants. They also saved $3,000 on energy costs in the first year of operation, at which rate the installation will be paid for by early 2010.

The installation consists of sixteen 4' X 10' solar panels on the roof of the brewery. Lucky Labrador Brewing Company operates three pubs in Portland.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The future of the electric car (Pt. 1)

Worldchanging recently published a story regarding Project Get Ready, an advocacy organization for the electric car. Project Get Ready is an initiative by the Rocky Mountain Institute, a self-describe "think and do" tank run by L. Hunter and Amory Lovins.

Project Get Ready was designed to tackle the biggest problem facing the electric car: consumer confidence. Because of the significant changes in infrastructure necessary to make electric cars a viable option, consumers are hesitant to buy into the system, unsure of their investment risk. Project Get Ready is working with individual cities to create a structure that will increase confidence:

To create such an ecosystem, incentives need to be put in ranging from financial incentives, to “luxuries” (like parking spots), advertising, job training, education, service, and more.

The initiative is currently working with three cities, Portland, OR; Indianapolis, IN; and Raleigh, NC, but they would like to increase that number to 20 to help meet their goal of making 2% of cars in the US electric by 2015.

More information about the specific goals of Project Get Ready and how to get involved is available here.

Phone Books

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has a program to reduce and recycle phone books. It offers suggestions to reduce the numbers of phone books that you receive from various vendors and gives recycling suggestions.

They also provide a link to the Phone Book Project, an initiative by the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI). The PSI worked with various phone book companies, recyclers and local governments to develop a voluntary pledge for phone book distributors, that includes:

- Opt-out (subscribers can request NOT to get the phone book).
- Environmental production components (e.g., use of recycled content, soy inks, etc.).
- Recycling best practices.

According to Oregon DEQ, only 20% of phone books are recycled on a national scale. By making this information regarding phone book recycling and opt-out policy more public, the amount of phone book waste can be greatly reduced.



Phone Book Project
Oregon DEQ - Phonebooks