UW Energy Hub

By Danny Sptizberg and Stephen Collins

Earlier this week, fellow Daily Cardinal opinion writer Anthony Cefali posed a question: “How do we [in American education] inspire our science program to shoot for the moon, or at least our own modern equivalent?” Well, we think we have an answer.

Look no further than clean energy. Some are calling it the biggest market opportunity in history. Experts of all stripes have repeatedly stated that the nation that wins the clean-energy race will be the nation that leads the 21st century economy. Discovering and implementing cheap, clean and reliable energy technologies is our generation’s final frontier. Read the rest of this entry →

Source: The Daily Cardinal

The fourth annual UW-Madison Residence Hall Energy Competition, organized by Big Red Go Green begins Monday.

According to Clay Thomas, Big Red Go Green media intern, the competition encourages residences of each dorm on campus to reduce their energy consumption, offering a prize for the winning dorm. Big Red Go Green is a campaign run by the Wisconsin Students Public Interests Research Group on campus.

Thomas said in the past that the prize has involved parties or socials for all members of the winning dorm, but the organizers are looking into new ideas for this year’s prize.

He added that students who promise to save energy individually by signing a pledge will become eligible to win prizes from area businesses such as Buffalo Wild Wings, Sconnie Nation and Underground Textbook Exchange.

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The University of Wisconsin at Madison has been named the 7th highest ranking “Cleantech” University for 2010. This distinction was awarded to the university based on “a pipeline of collaboration of businesses, universities, state initiatives, investors and research dollars.” Read more at Cleantech Group’s Webpage.

by Daniel Spitzberg, Energy Institute Writer

An ice sculpture of a polar bear outside the conference center in Copenhagen Photo: REUTERS

What exactly happened at the U.N. climate talks last December? While countless commentators have weighed in on international politicking, only a few individuals have discussed the on-the-ground activities and activism.

Speaking before a crowd last Wednesday on UW-Madison campus, two Madison locals shared their first-hand account of their recent excursion to Copenhagen. Molly Stentz of WORT and Free Speech Radio News and John Peck of Family Farm Defenders and La Via Campesina narrated the story alongside dozens of photographs they took both inside and outside the 15th annual U.N. summit.
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Rachel Slaybaugh, a PhD student in Engineering Physics at UW-Madison and a founding member of Energy Hub, published an editorial in Wednesday’s Daily Cardinal (12/15/09) on the rules governing the construction of new nuclear power plants in Wisconsin. 
Link to the article

Rachel argues that nuclear power should not be singled-out with nuclear-specific legal hurdles to new power generation construction.  Read the rest of this entry →

Lots of people (including the Obama administration) are banking on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles as a major factor in reducing our dependence on oil and greenhouse gas emissions.

Autoblog has a thorough profile of probably the most anticipated plug-in hybrid to date, the Chevrolet Volt. The Volt doesn’t hit retailers until late next year, but Autoblog did a test-drive with a pre-production Volt and has a lot of interesting tidbits about the technology involved. Check it out for yourself.

By Claudia Hartley, Energy Institute Writer

“Sustainability starts with people and their needs, not technology,” said Steve Steinhoff while speaking at a Student Bus Advocates meeting on Thursday in the Memorial Union. Addressing an audience largely populated by Urban and Regional Planning graduate students, Steinhoff used his expertise as the Executive Director of the Neighborhood Design Center to lead an informed discussion of what is sustainable neighborhood design and how it can be applied to communities, including Madison.
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by Michelle Hu, Energy Institute Writer

Carbon restrictions are inevitable and will require significant changes to the state’s energy mix—that’s the message from Commissioner Lauren Azar of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. Azar spoke Tuesday night with Wisconsin Commissioner of Insurance Sean Dilweg about making critical decisions in preparing for the uncertainties of climate change. The lecture was a part of the Nelson Institute’s Community Environmental Forum.
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This information is forwarded by friend of Energy Hub,
Niels Ole Holck, who works with WISPIRG, www.wispirgstudents.org:

The Madison March for Green Solutions will take place Friday, November 13th from Library Mall to the Capitol Building.  Meet at Library Mall at 3:00pm.

We are marching because energy consumption, depletion of natural resources, local pollution, and green house gas emissions all are rising. This is a completely unsustainable path and cannot be continued!

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Xcel Energy Press Release Monday, Nov. 2nd, 2009:

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW) has unanimously approved Xcel Energy’s application to install biomass gasification technology at its Bay Front Power Plant in Ashland, Wis. When completed, the project will convert the plant’s remaining coal-fired unit to biomass gasification technology, allowing it to use 100 percent biomass in all three boilers and making it the largest biomass plant in the Midwest. Currently, two of the three operating units at Bay Front use biomass as their primary fuel to generate electricity.
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