New weekly feature - the best of green

Each week, we'll feature the best green news story from the previous week. Join us to stay on top of what hot in the world of "going green" each Friday.

This week's story comes from Canadian journalist and blogger Tyler Hamilton. According to Hamilton,

A British Columbia-based company called Free Energy International has signed a deal with an undisclosed oil and gas exploration and production company in Alberta, in an area known as Swan Hills. Free Energy will build two 1-megawatt geothermal plants that take hot water — a co-product of oil and natural gas during the pumping process — and extract the heat from it to generate electricity. The $7 million project will tap wells that are around 9,000 feet deep, and temperatures of the fluids can easily reach 170 degrees F in high volumes. After the heat is extracted from the water using heat exchangers, it is used to run an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plant. The water is later pumped back into the ground. Free Energy will build, own and operate this binary cycle plant and the oil company has agreed to buy all the electricity produced for the same rate it was paying to a previous supplier.

Read the rest of the story on his green energy blog, Clean Break.

Green governement should lead the way

There's a lot of talk about going green, green incentives, green initiatives, etc. But so much of it seems to be lip service. I propose that our government - federal, state and local -- should be leading the way and setting the example of exactly how we can cut the cord of oil dependence.

My manifesto?

1) All government agencies should be paperless. Forms, applications, documents, registrations? All electronic. 100% by year end. No hard copies stored.

2) The switchover to green energy should start immediately in all government buildings. What a great use for stimulus money! Allow companies that sell solar power and wind power equipment to bid on green retrofitting of all government buildings by year's end. No lengthy process. Just choose a company and go.

3) All school lunches should immediately be switched to vegetarian ingredients. Crops use far less resources than animals, and school lunches account for a large and controllable segment of meat purchases and consumption. Healthier for the kids, too, which will reduce medical care needs. Follow this with all vegetarian in government agency and legistlative dining rooms. Oh, and don't forget the White House and all Governors' Mansions.

4) Telecommuting immediately available for all jobs that do not require face-to-face interaction or the use of machinery or equipment not available at home. That would free up a lot of space in government buildings, which could be converted in green research labs, homeless or transitional housing, or sold off to pay down debts and reduce ongoing facility costs.

5) Convert or replace all government vehicles with hybrids, hydrogen cell, solar or other clean (or cleaner) fuel sources. Again, great use for Stimulus $$$. Think of all the jobs created for this switch over! Making cars, building fueling stations, etc.

Five steps. Just five. Oh, but what a revolution those five would be!

Billionaire Pickens has a plan to save the earth...and our economy

T. Boone Pickens, the Dallas Billionaire has a plan for ending America's dependence on foreign oil...and in fact. most oil altogether.

And no, it's not a pie-in-the-sky someday-maybe dream. It's a do-able here and now plan. And to prove it, Pickens has already invested over $60 million dollars of his own money in his plan.

The plan involves an immediate and widespread switch to natural gas as our primary fuel source. It starts with a bill -- H.R. 1835 [the "New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2009," introduced by Rep. Dan Boren], which allows fleet owners to get new natural gas powered trucks paid for. AT&T has already agreed to replace 8,000 vehicles to run on natural gas -- that's one fifth of its fleet.

Picken's plan continues with the world's largest wind farm -- his wind farm in Texas. And then involves individual landowners who could generate wind energy on their own property and sell it into the grid.

Fed up with the endless debates and hand-wringing, Pickens is promoting a "Let's just do it" attitude. The alternative, inaction, he claims will destroy us within a decade. Read about his plan in detail at GreenBiz.com and decide for yourself.

Comments anyone?