Sustainable North

From Yale Environment 360, Thursday, August 19, 2010: With climate legislation dead in Congress and the fizzled hopes for a breakthrough in Copenhagen fading into distant memory, the time seems ripe for fresh strategies — especially ones that do not depend on government action. Here’s a modest proposal: radical transparency, the laying bare of a [...]

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From The Associated Press, Friday, September 17, 2010: A University of Alaska group will receive $3 million to study options to optimize wind-diesel hybrid energy systems in rural Alaska. The Alaska Center for Energy and Power, based at UA Fairbanks, was awarded the grant by the federal Department of Energy. The university says Alaska already [...]

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From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Friday, September 17, 2010: Large rolls of black tubing sat like super-sized balls of yarn next to the playground outside Weller Elementary School Wednesday. The sun shined brightly on the south-facing hillside, where a bulldozer carved out a 12-foot hole. The balls, which are actually polyethylene ground loops, were then [...]

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From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Friday, September 17, 2010: When Rich Boone looks at the future of Fairbanks, he can’t help but envision the canola fields outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. That’s because a projected warming trend in Alaska could eventually give the Interior the same climate characteristics that exist in that Canadian Midwestern agricultural city. Boone, [...]

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From The Tundra Drums, Wednesday, September 15, 2010: WindPower Innovations Inc., a wind power infrastructure and smart grid solutions company (PINK SHEETS:WPNV), announced talks with Alaska Villages Electric Co-op (AVEC), a non-profit electric utility, owned by the people served in 53 villages throughout interior and western Alaska, and is the largest service area of any [...]

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ASK A BUILDER By CCHRC Staff The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life. Q: Does it matter what type of wood I burn in my woodstove? Most species of local wood are suitable for burning [...]

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From The New York Times, Tuesday, September 14, 2010: The federal Clean Air Act, one of the most consequential pieces of environmental and health legislation in American history, celebrated its 40th birthday on Tuesday. The law, which has been attacked by business interests since its birth as overly costly and prescriptive, is under siege again [...]

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From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Tuesday, September 14, 2010: Instead of tossing that old computer or printer into the trash, Interior Alaska Green Star suggests that you take it to the annual Fall Electronics Recycling Event Sept. 24-25 at the Tanana Valley Fairgrounds. Aged electronics of all sorts will be accepted from 10 a.m. to [...]

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From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Saturday, September 11, 2010: Gov. Sean Parnell says that if Alaska is to meet the ambitious goal of getting half of its electricity from renewable sources some day, it will have to make a major commitment to big hydroelectric project, such as the Susitna project. On a visit to Fairbanks [...]

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ASK A BUILDER By CCHRC Staff The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the many questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life. Q: A lot of older homes use pink or yellow fiberglass insulation around doors or windows. If I’m going to reseal [...]

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