CenterCut: What Price Alternative Energy? Look For the Union Label.

Friday, June 19, 2009

What Price Alternative Energy? Look For the Union Label.

BrightSource Energy, which built a solar generating complex in the Negev Desert in Israel, above, has similar plans for California

A Move to Put the Union Label on Solar Power Plants

By TODD WOODY

Published: June 18, 2009

SACRAMENTO — When a company called Ausra filed plans for a big solar power plant in California, it was deluged with demands from a union group that it study the effect on creatures like the short-nosed kangaroo rat and the ferruginous hawk.

By contrast, when a competitor, BrightSource Energy, filed plans for an even bigger solar plant that would affect the imperiled desert tortoise, the same union group, California Unions for Reliable Energy, raised no complaint. Instead, it urged regulators to approve the project as quickly as possible.

One big difference between the projects? Ausra had rejected demands that it use only union workers to build its solar farm, while BrightSource pledged to hire labor-friendly contractors.

Balance of article: The New York Times

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CenterCut - Alternative Energy & Sustainability

Centercut tracks the political implications of policy, tax subsidies, and direct grants on alternative energy and sustainability projects worldwide.

We review articles and scientific journals the world over to discern emerging and replacement technologies, political trends and the occational intellectual cul-de-sac.

In a world under severe stress all systems require new thinking. It is imperative that sustainability and alternative energy become mantras for creative destruction and cascading innovation. Small incremental advances will 'ripple' across our fragile orb in waves of change unimagined.

Blog Editor: Richard L. Wottrich

CenterCut = Center of Gravity

The greatest challenges in life are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity.

Einstein said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” But the mysterious absent wisdom is noise, just as knowledge absent experience is irrelevance.

We are either a marvelous human race celebrating the ascendancy of humanity, science and technology, or we are the miscreants who have created a dysfunctional world under severe stress. Our blessing is that we still have a choice.

Richard L. Wottrich

Centercut Definitions

Alternative Energy - Energy Systems derived from sources that do not deplete irreplaceable natural resources or harm the environment.

Sustainability - The ability to maintain balance of a certain process or state in any system, especially related to the depletion of world energy and water resources at a rate that cannot be replaced.

Stakeholders - The end-users or clients, the people from whom requirements will be drawn, the people who will influence the design and, ultimately, the people who will reap the benefits of a completed project.