If Berkeley can do it …

… why can’t Alameda?

The City of Berkeley is proposing to finance the purchase and installation of solar on homes within the city. The homeowner pays for the solar through their property taxes over a 20 year period, thus eliminating the biggest hurdle in going solar  – the upfront installation costs!

This is how Berkeley’s program would work:

A property owner would hire a city-approved solar installer, who would determine the best solar system for the property, depending on energy use. Most residential solar panel systems in the city cost from $15,000 to $20,000. The city would pay the contractor for the system and its installation, minus any applicable state and federal rebates, and would add an assessment to the property owner’s tax bill to pay for the system.

The extra tax would include administrative fees and interest, which would be lower than what the property owner could obtain on his own, because the city would secure low-interest bonds and loans, officials say. The tax would stay with the property even if the owner sold, although the owner would have to leave the solar panels. The property owner would save money on monthly electricity bill because electricity generated by the solar panels would partly replace electricity delivered by the utility.

Green Building Exchange

A one stop shop for “green” items — not in Alameda, but across the bay in Redwood City.

Green Building Exchange provides the information and contacts necessary for the public or business professionals to realize any green building project, from initial design to completed structure. The public benefits by having a large choice of qualified vendors in one locale. Ease of selecting appropriate materials, services and qualified professionals for your buildingproject ultimately translates into reduced time and project costs.

Mayors Climate Protection Agreement

The Climate Protection Agreement which was adopted at the June 2005 Conference of US Mayors, commits participating cities to take the following actions:

Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;

Urge their state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol — 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and

Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system

Over 514 cities have signed on, but Alameda is not on the list Anybody know what’s stopping us?

Power Content Label

Another reason to live in Alameda: clean green power from Alameda Power & Telecom!

As the table indicates, 85% of our electricity is generated from renewable resources (53% from the “eligible renewal” category and 32% from large hydroelectric sources). This compares very favorably with PG&E (30%) and the state wide average of 36%.

Energy Resources	AP&T	PG&E	California
Eligible Renewable	53%	13%	5%
-Biomass and waste	8%	4%	<1%
-Geothermal	44%	3%	4%
-Small hydroelectric	1%	4%	<1%
-Solar	<1%	<1%	0%
-Wind	0%	2%	<1%
Coal	5%	2%	29%
Large hydroelectric	32%	17%	31%
Natural gas	9%	44%	35%
Nuclear	<1%	23%	<1%
Other	<1%	1%	0%

Solar Panels

With the decision of the city council to have Catellus and Lennar work in tandem on developing Alameda Point, the developers have a great opportunity to incorporate some green building techniques. As the Chronicle points out, Lennar already includes solar power as a standard feature in some of their new subdivisions.

The largest developer of residential properties in the East Bay, Lennar Bay Area Homebuilding, recently completed the first community of new homes in the Bay Area built with a roof-integrated solar electric system. Located in Danville, the 77 homes range in size from 3,673 to 4,243 square feet and are priced at about $1.3 million. The company is building an additional 250 homes equipped with solar power systems, priced at $900,000, in San Ramon.

National Day of Climate Action

As part of the National Day of Climate Action, nearly 1000 rallies are being planned all across the country on April 14th. The goal is to call upon Congress to pass a law requiring an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050. The organizers have termed this as a “wake up call” to legislators in Washington and hope to persuade Congress to get serious about climate change.

Alameda will be home to two such events:

Alameda Climate Action

Act Now on Climate

Consequences of a rising bay

That’s the subject of a report in the Chronicle, with high-res maps showing potential impact of rising sea levels across the bay area.

New maps show that neighborhoods and roads in many cities near the San Francisco Bay shoreline would be under water if global warming causes tides to rise as much as 3 feet in the coming decades, and officials say regions face key decisions about where people will be able to live and build.

Climate Change or Global Warming?

As the Bard once remarked, “What’s in a name? The earth is getting warmer by the year”.

An earlier post described the potential catastrophic impact of climate change on Alameda. The prognosis for many other locations in the bay area isn’t exactly cheery! Yup, the situation looks rather bleak (understatement of the year?) unless we make a collective effort to change our ways.

Oakland appears to be the first off the blocks (take that Berkeley!). The city has set itself a goal of being “oil free” by 2020.

… the East Bay’s largest city is getting ready to convene a task force that will try to make Oakland independent of oil by 2020. The goal of the 11-member oil-independence task force is to look at ways to significantly decrease the city’s reliance on fossil fuels — especially oil and coal — and find alternative fuel options. The plan will lay out strategies to reduce oil consumption citywide.

Some ideas include conservation retrofits for buildings, deploying alternative-fuel buses, purchasing hybrid cars and increasing the city’s usage of solar and wind power.

A climate protection task force was recently established in Alameda and we eagerly await its recommendations.

The summer that was

With all the cool weather (and the rains as of today) that we’ve been having of late, it is hard to imagine that just a few months ago we were in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave, with five consecutive days where the temperature was above 110F! It should come as no surprise that 2006 is now the warmest year on record (2005 had the dubious distinction earlier!).

July 21 (111 degrees, Vacaville)

July 22 (114 degrees, Morgan Hill)

July 23-25 in Rio Vista (110 degrees, 113 degrees, and 111 degrees, respectively)

A recent report indicates that alongwith the unprecedented heatwave, we had more smog than ever in nearly a decade! Although the bay area had 12 “smoggy” days in which we exceeded the federal smog standards, we still have the cleanest air among many urban areas (in comparison, LA had 86 smoggy days!)

Proposition 87

California has recently been in forefront in the battle against climate change with a landmark legislation to cut green house gas emissions by 25% over the next 15 years. This is also expected to decrease emissions to the 1990 level.

Proposition 87 is another step in the right direction. This would establish a $4bn program to reduce petroleum consumption by 25%, by providing research and production incentives for alternative energy technologies. Funding for this program would come from a tax of 1.5% to 6% (depending on oil price per barrel) on producers of oil extracted in California. The proposition explicitly prohibits producers from passing tax to consumers.

Naturally, this has gotten the oil companies into a tizzy and they are sparing no expense to discredit the proposition. After all, $10bn in quarterly profits only goes so far these days!