Albertans are passionate about balancing the development of this province’s rich resources with environmental stewardship. The Emerald Awards recognize and reward the excellent environmental initiatives undertaken each year by large and small corporations, individuals, not-for-profit associations, community groups and governments.

You can submit your nominations BEFORE Feb. 24th, 2012 by visiting http://emeraldfoundation.ca/emerald-awards/nominations/

Each year the Foundation receives nominations in ten established categories. Nominations open in November and close at the end of February.
A panel of knowledgeable judges, with cross-sectoral experience, carry out an independent evaluation based on criteria outlined in the nominations package and select the finalists and recipients.

In June each year, about 500 guests gather in Edmonton or Calgary to celebrate environmental excellence in Alberta and provide recognition to those individuals and organizations whose commitment to our environment truly demonstrates leadership. Because of their ingenuity, dedication and hard work, …

Every homeowner that makes the switch to solar becomes part of the solution to sustainably meeting the world’s energy needs. To ensure that your residential solar system is not only kind to the planet, but to your finances as well, avoid these seven mistakes when installing solar panels. 1. Hiring the Wrong Contractor Choosing the wrong solar contractor can lead to multiple mistakes. An awesome contractor will not only advise you about the right system to choose, where to install it and how many solar panels you’ll need, but can help with financing, incentives and other cost-cutting options. The right contractor will assess your home’s energy usage and show you how to make the system as efficient as possible. 2. Picking a Bad Location Ideally, a home solar system should be installed on a south-facing roof that ...

I love it when I’m planning to cover a story and then see someone on one of our sister sites already has. In this repost below, Priti Ambani does a great job covering Greenstart, “the first startup accelerator exclusively designed for the cleantech industry.” Check out the post and video below for more:   Cleantech Startup Accelerator ‘Greenstart’ Begins Second Program For Eco-entrepreneurs (via Ecopreneurist) Related posts: Ecopreneurist: Need Advice on Starting (and Funding) Your Cleantech Business? Ecopreneurist: How to Approach a Venture Capital Firm with a Cleantech Business Idea...

While on sabbatical from RMIT University in Melbourne, Associate Professor Dr Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, joined MIT Associate Professor Michael Strano’s nanotechnology research group and together accidentally discovered a new way to generate power. Their work was published in the December IEEE Spectrum Magazine, the publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), entitled ‘Nanodynamite: Fuel-coated nanotubes could provide bursts of power to the smallest systems’. The MIT-led team were measuring the acceleration of a chemical reaction along a nanotube when they found that the reaction they were monitoring actually generated power. Now, Dr Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh and Michael Strano are combining their expertise in chemistry and nanomaterials to explore this phenomenon. Associate Professor Kalantar-zadeh said that his experimental system, based on one of the materials that have come from nanotechnology ...

A hydrokinetic turbine company, Hydrovolts, has been getting into the news recently for innovative new hydrokinetic turbines that will go where no hydrokinetic turbine has gone before.

Hydrovolts turbine for clean energy generation, designed with the help of Autodesk software. (Photo: Business Wire)

“Clean technology innovator Hydrovolts is using software from Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) to create unique hydrokinetic turbines that are more easily installed in rivers, canals and other waterways for faster generation of renewable energy. The company’s smaller turbines can be quickly installed and generating power in less than an hour,” Business Wire reports. As stated above, they can be installed many places, but the company is most focused on getting them installed in wastewater treatment plants. Hydrovolts has been in talks with Veolia Environmental Solutions, one of the biggest wastewater treatment processors in ...

Clearly undeterred by the GOP’s ongoing effort to cut federal support for clean energy, the Obama Administration has just announced a new $150 million round of funding for cutting-edge research into solar, wind, geothermal, bio-based energy and ocean power along with dozens of other categories related to renewable energy and energy efficiency. The funds are coming through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), an agency modeled after DARPA, the legendary Department of Defense research program that developed the Internet. If ARPA-E can come anywhere near that accomplishment, it looks like the U.S. is in for more than a little change in the fossil fuel status quo. New clean energy tech trumps fossil fuel era ARPA-E’s funding announcement is still in the draft stage but ...

Research and analysis of solar PV manufacturing costs and international trade flows shows that Chinese silicon solar PV manufacturers have only a slight cost advantage on their US counterparts, and that excludes transportation costs, the effect of inflation rate differentials, and other factors. Furthermore, the extraordinary rise in Chinese exports of silicon solar PV cells and panels to the US could only be sustained with the support of massive government subsidies, according to a US DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) presentation. The results provide additional evidence in support of SolarWorld America’s and the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing’s (CASM) international trade petitions against Chinese silicon solar PV manufacturers and Chinese government subsidies, asserts SolarWorld America’s president Gordon Brinser. “This analysis from the renewable-energy research arm of the U.S. government corroborates our view that an export drive sponsored by ...

Pasteurization Technology Group has come up with a way to clean up wastewater without the use of chemicals and generate renewable energy at the same time.

For a long time ‘clean’ and ‘green’ marked the forward trend in the energy industry. Then came the quest for ‘smart’ energy. And now ‘innovation’ is the buzzword. It’s easy to see why. As Americans, we believe our ability to innovate sets us apart in today’s international market. Sure China can manufacture computers and cell phones more quickly and cheaply, but we came up with Google and iPhones in the first place. The energy industry offers a lot of opportunity for US innovators, given our aging grid, quest for alternatives to fossil fuels, and our glimpse into the possibilities of a virtual, democratized grid that gives consumers more control over their energy use and production. But will energy innovation help the US job market? Or will the products be conceived here but be manufactured elsewhere? Siemens ...

Yesterday, I focused a bit small-scale or medium-scale solar (in the US & UK) here on CleanTechnica. On the flip side, news today from Solarbuzz is that utility-scale photovoltaic solar is growing fast in North America and looking for 2012 to be its top year yet.

Q4 2011 Saw Record Installations “Sharp reductions in market prices combined with the impact of regional and national policies pushed the North American photovoltaic market to a new quarterly peak with 0.93 GW installed in Q4’11, according  to the latest North American PV Markets Quarterly report issued by NPD Solarbuzz, “the solar market research and analysis company notes. “The solar incentive policy mix in both the United States and Canadian markets drove up demand in large-scale ground-mount systems, which was 59% of this total. Regionally, the New Jersey, California, ...