Landfill methane goes to work

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Chicken waste turned to watts

A Nevada energy developer says it has developed an environmentally clean way of using animal waste from chicken farms across the state to light up homes and offices. Green Energy Solutions wants to convert the bird droppings into methane and use the clean-burning gas as a renewable fuel to generate electricity.

The new company is one of many that hope to benefit from a 2007 state law that requires electric utilities to increase their reliance on renewable fuels, such as solar energy, poultry waste and swine waste. But green remedies, like all answers to complex problems, cause side effects.

Poultry waste, despite its abundance, has so far proven a problematic fuel. When burned directly, it spews air emissions comparable to those from a coal-burning power plant. Green Energy Solutions proposes to solve that problem by extracting methane from the waste and leaving behind an odorless sludge that can be used as fertilizer.

State, cities act on climate

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CORRECTION

A front-page story Sunday about actions being taken by state and local governments to address climate change contained an error about the frequency of a proposed fee that utilities might charge to recoup costs of producing energy from renewable resources. The $10 fee, which utilities might add to residential customers' bills starting next year, would be imposed annually.

A call for rooftop solar panels

An environmental advocacy group that says North Carolina's greenhouse gas emissions are rising proposes a solution: Putting solar panels on nearly 700,000 rooftops.

Environment North Carolina, in a report to be issued today, says that based on current solar energy development in the state, the sun could supply at least 14 percent of the state's energy needs in two decades.

The group's report identifies Wake and Mecklenburg counties as having the greatest number of rooftops suitable for solar panels.

Two Durham fire stations to get solar hot water systems

City officials plan to use about $30,000 of a $2.17 million stimulus grant to install solar hot water systems on two firehouses.

"It's a small step, but a step in the right direction in terms of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions," Durham Mayor William Bell said.

The installation is also supposed to save taxpayer money. A solar hot water system that the city's general-services department put into one of its buildings last fall should save about $2,800 a year, said Dean Pricer, the city's energy manager. At that rate, the system will pay for itself in less than five years.

China, U.S. announce they'll work together on clean energy

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao agreed Tuesday that U.S. and Chinese scientists and engineers will work together to speed the widespread use of electric cars, buildings that need far less energy and coal-fired power plants that don't pump out gases that cause global warming.

The collaboration will be a two-way street, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a phone interview from Beijing, where he was accompanying Obama. The U.S. stands to gain not only from an expanded market for exports and more jobs at home, but also from demonstration projects in China that serve as large experiments for working out problems in new technology, Chu said.

The work will be anchored through a new U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. The $150 million funding over five years will be shared equally between the countries. "That's more than talking," Chu said.