Coal is Dead: Coal Ash Spill Yet Another Reason to Switch to Renewable Energy

Written on 12/26 at 12:51 AM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: environment Renewable Energy News

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Image Credit: J. Miles Carey/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated Press

Coal Is An Awful Energy Source
For all the efforts of the coal industry to make it seem like it’s possible for there to be such a thing as “clean coal” (Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection has been running some great ads dispelling that myth), yesterday’s disaster in Tennessee has demonstrated yet another way in which coal is a nasty, dirty, awful source of energy. What happened was the following, as described by the New York Times: a “breach occurred when an earthen dike, the only thing separating millions of cubic yards of ash from the river, gave way, releasing a glossy sea of muck, four to six feet thick, dotted with icebergs of ash across the landscape.” The ash is actually fly ash, “a byproduct of the burning of coal to produce electricity” that “contain[s] significant amounts of carcinogens and retains the heavy metal present in coal in far higher concentrations.” This isn’t the first time such a breach has occurred, though it is probably the worst, having destroyed 15 homes and released 2.6 million cubic yards of toxic heavy metals.  So add toxic sludge to air pollution, climate change, danger to miners, and mountaintop removal to the dangers posed by coal mining and the burning of coal to generate electricity.  Isn’t that enough to convince America to switch to renewable energy?

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Winning a Grant, and Other Exciting News

Written on 12/24 at 08:52 PM by Andy Posner 1 comments

Filed under: Business News

Winning a $500 Grant
Two days ago, as I was sitting in my apartment and looking out the window at the snow piled on the branches and walkways of Providence, I received a call informing me that I had won a $500 grant from dosomething.org for The Capital Good Fund.  Every week, Do Something selects a social entrepreneur that is under the age of 24 to win a $500 grant.  I applied, along with the rest of the Capital Good Fund team, several months ago, and I had long ago forgotten about the grant.  Although the money itself isn’t much--it will provide about half of a citizenship loan--it also provides our project with great exposure, gives us access to more networking, and provides us with additional, and much needed, technical assistance.  Receiving the grant also gave me a boost of confidence as I enter a very busy of time during which I start a company, launch a non-profit and write my masters thesis.

Incorporating The Capital Good Group, Inc
In other exciting news, Mike and I finally incorporated our environmental consulting company last Friday.  The Capital Good Group, Inc., will officially be a corporation in the state of Rhode Island as of January 1, 2009.  The reason why we finally decided to incorporate is that it’s becoming increasingly clear that a lot of people are getting into the game, and we don’t want to be left behind.  Specifically, we found out that the people in Berkeley, California, who came up with the bond model--wherein the up-front cost of doing efficiency or renewable energy upgrades is covered by a low-interest loan from the City, and the loan is paid back in the form of a property tax add-on equal to or less than the savings from the installation--started their own company.  The company, Renewable Funding, LLC, helps municipalities implement the bond model.  Well, I saw an article saying that the model, if implemented nationwide, has the potential to be worth $240 billion, and at the moment there is only one company doing it.  Hence the urgency to get it on the game.

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Considering All the Benefits of Residential Renewable Energy is Critical

Written on 12/14 at 04:05 PM by Andy Posner 4 comments

Filed under: Huffington Post environment Renewable Energy

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post. It can be found in its original context here.

Ask most people about the benefits of residential renewable energy--geothermal, rooftop solar photovoltaic and solar thermal, and backyard wind turbines, primarily--and the response is usually the same: they are good for the environment, raise property value and lower or eliminate utility bills.  While undoubtedly true, these responses present an incomplete picture of the benefits of distributed renewable energy.  In certain instances, such as last week when a single ice storm left over 1 million homes and businesses in New England without power, a residential energy system can mean the difference between seeking shelter and being able to shelter others.  Other times, particularly during peak demand, renewables stabilize the grid and lower costs for all utility customers.

The Grid Can Fail, and It’s Expensive When It Does
America’s electricity grid is an engineering marvel, but it is also old, outdated, overstrained and susceptible to failure from storms, terrorism, accidents and high energy demand.  And when the grid fails, not only is the loss of power inconvenient, it is also dangerous and costly.  For example, the 2003 blackout that stretched from Canada to New York was estimated to have an economic cost of “between $7 and $10 billion. . .due to food spoilage, lost production and overtime wages” as well as the cost of repairing and upgrading the affected parts of the grid.  While the 2003 grid failure was one of the most extraordinary outages to hit the United States, smaller scale blackouts, particularly from storms and natural disasters, are rather common.

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Executive Summary of the Capital Good Fund Business Plan

Written on 12/08 at 01:06 AM by Andy Posner 15 comments

Filed under: brown micro credit

Things are moving quickly on the microfinance initiative I’ve been working on with a team of Brown students since June.  We--the Capital Good Fund--have just completed the business plan.  Between now and February 1 (when our pilot phase of 10 loans begins) we need to raise another $15,000, and iron out some of the details of our operations and loan provision.  However, I feel very happy about our progress thus far.  Below is the Executive Summary of our business plan which, in two pages, outlines our programs, comparative advantage, and plans for future growth.  Comments are welcome and appreciated!

Executive Summary
The Capital Good Fund (CGF or The Fund) is a microfinance organization initiated by Brown University students and supported by several local community partners.  The Fund will provide affordable microloans, access to bank accounts, credit building, business and financial literacy training and other support to low-income residents of Providence, Rhode Island who seek capital for income generating activities.  CGF is inspired by the success of micro finance institutions (MFIs) around the world, in particular the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the founder of which--Muhammad Yunus--won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.  CGF is predicated on the belief that access to affordable capital can play a critical role in unleashing the entrepreneurial capacity of the poor, thereby raising each borrower’s standard of living and bettering the community in which he/she lives. 

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A Financing Mechanism Powerful Enough to Catalyze the Green Economy

Written on 12/07 at 09:02 PM by Andy Posner 1 comments

Filed under: Huffington Post Business environment Renewable Energy

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here.

Despite the recent (and undoubtedly temporary) drop in energy prices, the fact remains that because of the economic downturn and an aging housing stock, many families will struggle to heat their homes this winter.  At the same time, the need to create jobs, stimulate the economy, create sound investment opportunities and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions has never been greater.  There is no silver bullet for solving all these challenges, but an innovative financing mechanism for renewable energy and energy efficiency could go a long way toward putting the country on the right track.  Here’s how it works.

Homeowners Need Efficiency Upgrades--But Can’t Afford Them
Imagine you are a low-income homeowner in Providence, Rhode Island. Chances are your home is 100 years old: the walls are barely insulated, the windows single-paned, and the boiler a relic of the 1950s.  In the winter your heating bills are such that you can hardly afford to run the heat, often leaving your family shivering.  And even though a $10,000 investment would dramatically lower those heating costs and pay for itself within 5 years, you can hardly pay for the mortgage--let alone $10,000 in efficiency upgrades.

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Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States

Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!

My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…

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A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States?

Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development.  To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…

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Tonight, the Oneness of Things

It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come.  I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…

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