New York City’s iconic Empire State Building, once the world’s tallest building, has been undergoing a multi-million dollar green renovation that will now extend to the power that’s used by the 102-story Art deco landmark’s tenants.

Malkin Holdings, which operates and maintains the 2.85 million square-foot office building has announced it will buy 100 percent of its power from a wind farm owned by Green Mountain Energy Company.

“It was a natural fit for us to combine 100 percent clean energy with our nearly completed, groundbreaking energy efficiency retrofit work,” said Anthony E. Malkin, President of Malkin Holdings, which runs the building, said in the announcement.

“Clean energy and our nearly 40% reduced consumption of watts and BTUs gives us a competitive advantage in attracting the best credit tenants at the best rents,” he said.

The two-year contract for 55 million kWh of renewable energy annually will prevent nearly 100 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year, the firm said.

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By: Todd Woody

The anemic economic recovery may have hit the dog days of summer with consumer spending and factory orders slowing, but the new energy economy continues to surge, according to a report released Tuesday by Ernst & Young.

Venture capital (VC) investment in renewable energy, electric cars, energy efficiency, and other green technology jumped to $1.5 billion in the United States in the second quarter of 2010, a nearly 64 percent spike over the second quarter of last year. Green tech investment now has returned to the record levels of the third quarter of 2008, before the global economic collapse shut down the VC’s ATM.

So where’s the money going? Between March and June, at least, investors hitched a ride with startups developing electric cars and the infrastructure to support them. Better Place, the Palo Alto company building electric vehicle charging networks around the world, snagged $350 million. Fisker Automotive, a Southern California startup building a sexy and pricy plug-in hybrid sports sedan called the Karma, scored $35 million, according to the report.

Solar remains a hot opportunity for venture capitalists, with nearly $439 million invested in the second quarter, a 183 percent increase from the year-ago quarter.

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By: Brian Keane

As we near the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, what better time to take the pulse of the American people on solar energy?

For decades solar has been marketed to the American people as a product that is “good for the environment.” And indeed, it is good for the environment. The problem is, as a marketing and sales technique, simply being good for the environment won’t get you a lot of customers.

Fortunately, like Earth Day, the solar industry is growing up! We’re learning just how vital strong consumer research, solid messaging and aggressive marketing campaigns are to creating a vibrant solar market.

New consumer market research by my organization, SmartPower, shows that reducing one’s long-term energy costs is often more compelling to consumers than the obvious environmental benefits. In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone — least of all President Obama, who clearly understands our country’s energy’s challenges. (His pledge of $3.4 billion in Recovery Act funds to modernize America’s electric grid seems to be just a first step toward modernizing our energy infrastructure.) But these good policies must be driven by a solid understanding of how to market solar energy to the American consumer.

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By: Andre Amado

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently granted sugarcane ethanol the status of “advanced biofuel” after recognizing — based on scientific studies — that it reduces the emission of greenhouse gases by 61% when compared to gasoline.

The world’s top economy is justifiably concerned about climate change, which increasingly threatens the quality of life on our planet. We all know that without energy, there can be no development, but the production and use of energy and industrial activity are large carbon emitters. The greatest challenge of our times is precisely to try to reverse the current trend of environmental degradation without disrupting economic growth in its role of generating employment, particularly in developing countries where the most shameful pollution is poverty.

Brazil has much to say in this debate. In the 1970s, the response we gave to the sudden increase in oil prices, when the country imported about 80% of our fuel, came in the form of the Pro-Alcohol Program. With ups and downs, government, businesses and research centers engaged in developing a competitive fuel — sugarcane ethanol — which quickly proved to be the product with higher agricultural productivity, higher energy efficiency, and more opportunity for socially-inclusive development, as wages paid in the sugar-alcohol industry are the highest in farming.

At the same time, the adoption of flex-fuel technologies ignited the process that enabled Brazil not only to develop the world’s cleanest energy matrix — with a 46% share of renewable energy against a world average of 13% and just 6% in industrialized countries — but also to prevent releasing carbon emissions to the tune of 850 million tons since the Pro-Alcohol program was enacted. It is worth stressing that Brazil is now the only country in the world where gasoline — not ethanol — is the alternative fuel.

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By: Sean Casten

The smart grid conversation is stupid. Policies to encourage smart grids are at best minor distractions, and at worst contrary to the public interest. Smart grids are also the key to cleaning up and modernizing the electric system.

These sentences are not in conflict with one another.

The smart grid is the cart, not the horse. There is no doubt that better access to real time data could facilitate a much more rational use of our electric infrastructure, shifting usage patterns (both in time and in space) to reduce the costs of grid construction and operation. But we don’t need new technologies.

Don’t get me wrong — new technologies are great, and they’ll keep getting greater. But since when do we need to invent a way to share real time data? The internet is here — get used to it! I installed a biomass-CHP plant at a lumber mill in northern Vermont four years ago that included a $1000 bit of communication hardware to remotely monitor and control the unit through the ethernet. In so doing, that generator could participate in ISO-New England’s Forward Capacity Market, getting paid for avoiding new central generation and transmission assets. In other words, that system did everything that the Smart Grid is promised to do, with pretty cheap, off-the-shelf technology.

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