On Green Island

NEW YEAR, NEW DECADE, NEW HOME

2011-01-01T11:49:00.000-04:00

It's the first day of 2011. Today, we start a new year -- and the second decade of the 21st century. And we're starting from a new home. This blog is now at http://www.greenislandinc.com/category/blog/ where all new items will be posted. This space will remain (indefinitely) as an archive of sorts. Thanks for your support over the past two years and we hope you'll continue to check us out at

A BRIEF (END-OF-DECADE) ENERGY ROUNDUP

2010-12-06T02:08:00.007-04:00

1. What century are we in, again? Here’s an amazing fact: over the past 10 years, the retail price of electricity across the OECS has roughly doubled. And over the same period, most of the energy-sector leaders of the affected countries have done exactly nothing about the fundamental problem. This makes the chances quite good that, unless things change drastically and soon, pretty much the

WELECTRICITY WINS GE ECOMAGINATION CONSUMER INNOVATION AWARD

2010-11-20T00:48:00.006-04:00

Guest post by Welectricity At a live Ecomagination awards ceremony in New York City on Tuesday, GE announced twelve companies in which they will invest $55 million, five "Innovation Award" winners and five "Consumer Innovation Award" winners. The announcement was the most recent milestone in GE's $200 million Ecomagination Challenge, their committment to find, fund and develop the best,

THE FUTURE CONSUMER-FACING SMART GRID: A METER, A WEB APP AND A MOBILE PHONE

2010-10-21T11:51:00.001-04:00

What will the consumer-facing smart grid look like? A post by Katie Fehrenbacher on GigaOm this week notes that while utilities are installing the infrastructure for smarter power grids, “it will be the applications that run on top of these networks that will drive a lot of the revenues for companies, and ultimately provide the important functionality for consumers and utilities.”I agree with

IMAGINATION: THE RAW MATERIAL OF PROGRESS

2010-09-30T01:31:00.009-04:00

Guest post from Welectricity The GE Ecomagination contest comes to an end today and I'd like to make a few comments about it. It's been an incredible ride and I sincerely commend GE for their own innovation - not in launching the contest, but in making it a global contest. That was a master stroke. I would also like to applaud the work of the many people who have submitted their ideas. The

DISCUSSION: WHAT IF THE PUBLIC HAD PERFECT CLIMATE INFORMATION?

2010-07-01T09:58:00.000-04:00

I read Joe Romm’s post last night, which speculates on the outcome of the public having “perfect climate information”. Romm, who writes the widely applauded blog Climate Progress, was responding to a post by Andrew Revkin of the New York Times’ Dot Earth, another widely read green blog. The discussion is about climate science and its trajectory. Romm’s thesis in a nutshell says that if we had “

RADICAL ACTIONS FOR RADICAL TIMES

2010-06-05T14:29:00.000-04:00

Guest post by Welectricity Getting people to change their behavior is hard, but it can be done. The first thing required is recognition that there’s a problem. In this case, the problem is our addiction to the consumption of more and more stuff as an end in itself, which directly fuels our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels, which in turn is slowly destroying our planet. Perhaps there

WHAT'S IT COSTING NOW, BP?

2010-06-05T11:15:00.019-04:00

On April 20th 2010 an explosion shook the Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible offshore oil rig working 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. The rig caught fire, eleven workers died in the mishap and the rig, owned and operated by Transocean Ltd on behalf of British oil giant BP, sank two days later – on Earth Day. NASA image of the Gulf on May 24, 2010. From http://

A SHARED MISSION

2010-05-15T23:31:00.002-04:00

Guest post from WelectricityI found Chris Baskind's blog tonight, which has inspired me to post this. I'd already been following Chris on Twitter, but have only just gotten around to checking his other writing out. He lives in Florida and he's been writing some powerful stuff on the unfolding BP oil disaster that threatens him and us all. Chris describes himself as someone who believes

HOW WELECTRICITY WORKS

2010-05-08T22:27:00.008-04:00

Welectricity, a free service that helps you track and reduce your electricity consumption at home, was launched on Earth Day 2010. Here's a short (4 minute) video that walks you through how it works. Ok, so... are you ready to save some money and help save the planet? Go to http://www.welectricity.com to get started!

EARTH DAY 2010: CARIBBEAN EDITION - No 2

2010-04-22T02:07:00.001-04:00